


Holy Palmer's Kiss

by Salish



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Dark Past, Ex Con Ben Solo, F/M, Healing Sex, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Violence, Massage, Redeemed Ben Solo, Rey Needs A Hug, Slow Burn, Slowish burn?, There will be fluff, Welder Rey, massage fantasy but make it semi respectful, there will be smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:14:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23539684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salish/pseuds/Salish
Summary: Rey is a construction worker who doesn't like to be touched. Ben Solo, reformed criminal, is her new massage therapist. They both need a lot more than a hug. These sweet idiots share a single brain cell, and this is (I hope) the first fic I've ever finished.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 90
Kudos: 304





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay y'all. This will be a silly, smutty, fluff-fest to get myself through the apocalypse. I've got most of it planned out, and by god I'm going to finish it. Positive reinforcement and constructive criticism encouraged.

Rey is way beyond having second thoughts. This really wasn’t her kind of thing. An electric water feature burbled peacefully in the corner. Over the past five minutes she had identified actual whale sounds and what she thought be a pan flute piping thinly from the overhead speakers. She sat on the very edge of the lobby chair, her knee jiggling unconsciously as she filled out the intake form.

_Have you received services with us in the past?:_   
_Are there any medical conditions that your therapist should be aware of?:_   
_What medications do you currently take?:_   
_Are you currently pregnant?:_

This was already too personal and she was still in the waiting room. Rey stole a glance up at the front desk, seriously considering making a quick exit while the attendant was refilling the dispenser of cucumber water. She went so far as to set down the clipboard and reach for her bag, when an electric zap of pain shot up her lower back, freezing her in place. She grimaced, and returned to the form. Uncomfortable as the new-age surroundings made her, she really needed some relief, and her usual (ibuprofen and a stiff upper lip) wasn’t cutting it. She had caved at last the previous day, calling the massage place that Finn had scrawled on the back of a jimmy-john’s napkin for her weeks ago when she first admitted to having pulled something during her shift. She’d worked through injuries in the past, and she didn’t want to look weak… but Finn had been so insistent that all the guys on their crew got regular body work. She might as well take advantage of her fancy new benefits, right?

Three months into her new job at Organa Construction, Rey still felt like she had stumbled into a dream that she might wake up from at any moment. It was hard work, and she was still the only woman on the jobsite most days, but the change in her quality of life was so dramatic it was hard to believe it was real. The guys on her crew were decent- really decent, not just the kind that smiled to her face and made sick jokes behind her back. They seemed to accept her skill without her having to fight tooth and nail for their respect. She even felt like she was making friends. She was careful about her relationships at work, but Poe and Finn were gradually earning her trust and affection, one good-natured joke at a time. Most of all, there was the security of a living wage, and benefits. No more bad checks. No more getting the power shut off. She could actually afford to go to this place- she’d triple checked her insurance packet before making the appointment.

Scrawling her signature at the bottom of the page, Rey levered herself out of the chair to return the form to the front desk. The woman (Gwen, according to her name tag) beamed down at her, all glowing skin and extremely white teeth. She looked like she belonged on a pamphlet touting the benefits of fresh air and exercise.

“Perfect, Miss… Niima?” Gwen glanced down at the clipboard and up again. Rey grimaced in confirmation. “If you’ll come with me, you’ll be seeing Ben today”.

Rey obediently followed, passing through a doorway strung with tiny, tinkling brass bells and down the back hall. _Ben, huh?_ Her stomach sank a little. She hadn’t requested a specific massage therapist, but had vaguely pictured some sort of motherly hippie type. A male masseuse would be fine, of course. She adjusted her mental image to include a grey beard, and maybe some Birkenstocks. No problem.

Gwen stopped so abruptly that Rey almost stepped on the taller woman’s heels. She was beaming again, this time at the absolute giant of man who had just emerged from the room at the end of the hall, raising a hand in greeting.

“Hi, you must be Rey? I’m Ben Solo. Come on in. Thanks Gwen. ” The other woman twinkled at Rey, somehow ushering her inside at the same time as she handed over the clipboard and breezed off, seemingly taking all the air in the room with her.

The man smiled mildly at her and then glanced at the form, which gave Rey a moment to snap her jaw shut and attempt to gather herself. This guy bore absolutely no resemblance to the middle aged wizard-type that she had imagined only seconds before. No Beard. Definitely no sandals.

_Jesus, he was big._

“First Time?”

“Excuse me?”

He gestured to the clipboard “It… says here that this is your first massage.”

Rey flushed. “Oh, Yeah. First time.”

“It also says you’re a structural welder” His eyes darted swiftly over her, and Rey found herself raising her chin defiantly, “and that you’ve been experiencing lower back pain for almost three weeks?”

He returned her silent nod, setting the form aside. “Well, let’s see what we can do about that. I’m going to leave the room while you undress to your comfort level. Hop up here,” He patted the massage table next to him with a large hand, “face down please, under the sheet. I’ll be right back with you.”

When he left, Rey let out a breath she hadn’t known she had been holding. “Just undress to your comfort level, Niima” she muttered to herself, huffing a laugh even as her hands shook. She unlaced her workboots and shimmied out of her jeans. Socks she balled up inside the boots. Shirt, jacket, and pants stacked neatly on top. She stood there half naked, goosebumps springing up all over her body, and hesitated. _Bra on or off? What was normal?_ She panicked, changed her mind twice, and eventually took the bra off. She stuffed it under her folded jacket, making sure no lace was peeking out.

There was a light knock on the door.

_Shit._

“Just a second!” Rey squeaked, diving for the table. How long had she just spend fussing over underwear? Her back throbbed in protest at the sudden movement, but she was tucked safely under the sheet within seconds. “Ok, fine now.”

“No rush” His voice was a soft rumble from the other side of the door. She took a few deep breaths, trying to calm her racing heart as she heard him come back into the room, moving about slowly. She wasn’t afraid, exactly. But Rey hadn’t been naked with another person in years and Ben Solo was not… what she had been prepared for. He was young, and attractive and… _You’re not naked with him_. She told herself firmly, _He’s a safe, professional person who does this every day. A fully dressed professional person. Get a grip!_

She mumbled her assent into the table when asked if she was ready, unable to stop every muscle in her body from clenching. His hands rested gently on her back, touching briefly at her ankle, her shoulder, her waist. Staying on top of the soft white sheet, the hands slid lightly over each of her stiff limbs. Then he removed his hands and stepped back.

“Hey.” She craned her neck to squint up at him and found herself fixed with a dark stare. A small line had appeared between his brows, but his expression was otherwise neutral. “You’re very tense. I want to make sure that you’re comfortable with this.”

She chewed her lip, sheet clutched unconsciously around her shoulders and under her chin. She must look like a frightened burrito

“Yes.” she said firmly. “yes, I just- haven’t been touched in a while. It’s strange. But it’s ok.” She could feel herself blushing again, but looked him stubbornly in the eye. So what if that was humiliating? This wasn’t personal, it was… business. And he’d asked out of professional concern, which she actually really appreciated, embarrassment aside.

He nodded at her, not saying anything more. She buried her face in the sheets again, trying to unsee the way his expression had just softened.

The hands came back, but this time they were accompanied by his voice. “I’m going to start like this, to get a sense of where you’re carrying tension in your body” His voice was quiet, but so deep that Rey felt it vibrating in her bones. He slid his hands firmly up and down each of her limbs again, the sheet a smooth barrier between his skin and hers. His fingers explored her muscles gently, pausing to press deeper at a point of resistance here, a tender spot there. The drag of this palms over the fabric was soothing, and she felt herself beginning to unwind.

“I can feel the issue that you have here” He pressed his fingertips into her right hip and she hissed in pain “Sorry! Yes, the hip flexor needs plenty of work. That’s almost certainly the source of your back trouble. We’ll go slowly with that.. but you also carry tension in your arms and shoulders” he demonstrated with a few points of pressure that robbed Rey of breath once again. “you’ve been asking a lot of your body, I think.”

She snorted inelegantly into the headrest. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“I’m going to pull the sheet back now, if you’re ready. Just to here.” He indicated a spot near the waistband of her underwear with a finger. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do next, and you tell me if you that’s ok. I won’t ever touch you in any way that you’re uncomfortable with, and you never have to be more exposed than you want to be. I can be very creative with the sheet” She heard the humor is his tone- another attempt to set her at ease. She smiled in response, then remembered that he couldn't see her face and nodded.

The air was cool on her back as Ben folded the fabric back. He tucked the sides of the sheet under her hips with movements so quick and efficient she barely registered them. She heard small sounds- a cap being unscrewed, his hands rubbing together slickly… oil, she realized, as a delicious smell reached her nostrils. She tried to untangle the fragrance into single notes, cedar? lavender? but gave up immediately as his hands landed on her bare skin and all her senses narrowed in on that one sensation.

It felt so good. He used firmer pressure now, enormous palms sliding over her torso in long, liquid strokes, his thumbs carving smooth channels along her spine. With those thumbs kneading the tender muscles at the base of her spine, his hands spanned the entire width of her lower back. He might easily have curled his fingers all the way around her hips. The thought sent an electric thrill to her core, and she firmly rerouted that line of thinking.

It turned out to be easy- not thinking. In fact, she couldn’t remember when her mind had last been so quiet. Her thoughts never really slowed down, not when she was exhausted after a long shift, not when she treated herself to hot bath and a beer. Not even during sex, which might explain how rarely she bothered to find a partenr. But now her brain seemed content to simply process sensation.

_Ouch, yes, right there_. She thought occasionally.

_Is he using his whole forearm?_

_Yep, that’s an elbow._

_Oh wow… Elbow is good._

But mostly, she thought nothing.

When he worked on the area that was hurting her most, that bliss was interrupted by awkwardness once again. He explained briefly but clearly how tense flexors in the hip could pull the lower back out of alignment, and that he would need to work on the hip and glute directly to address her pain. She couldn’t help but squirm at the idea of a stranger’s hands on the bare skin of her ass, no matter how professional and considerate he had been so far. Thank god I left my underwear on, she thought. And then, Oh god why didn’t I wear nicer underwear?

He must have caught a glimpse of her expression as she snuck a mortified look at him, because Ben slid the sheet all the way back up over her shoulders.

“We’ll work over the cover this time, I think. It will help the muscles let go of tension if you stay nice and warm.”

Rey sighed, embarrassed and relieved and a little disappointed all at once.

The work on her injury ended up being a different beast entirely. Ben was exceptionally gentle, but the deep knots he found in her glute and outer thigh were tender in the extreme, and she found herself gritting her teeth, breathing deeply into the pain as he talked her through each painful spot.

“Tell me how this happened” he would prompt her, and she was briefly distracted by describing the physical challenges at work that had built up to this point. He asked about how she had adapted her workflow to accommodate her smaller size and strength, and rather than bristling, she found herself responding to his questions openly. There was none of the skepticism in his tone that she had come to expect from men who asked her about her job, and his questions were straightforward and intelligent.

“Oh!” She gasped as he pressed down on a knot. He was careful, but it seemed to be the size of a small boulder and felt like an icepick in her side.

“it’s okay, I feel that too.” He murmured, shifting until the pain was bearable. She matched her breaths to his, and felt the tension begin melt. Slowly, slowly, her body let it go.

Her 60 minutes were up before she knew it.

Rey wasn’t sure when he had stopped the deep tissue work that had been so challenging. His hands had eventually returned to the gentle strokes that had first lulled her into a daze, and she was startled by their sudden absence.

“Okay, Rey. I’m going to step out of the room. Take as long as you need to het up and dressed, and I’ll meet you right outside.”

Peeling herself up off the table when he’d gone, Rey rubbed sandy eyes and stretched. She was relaxed and warm. There was a delicious, tingling looseness in her limbs that she normally associated with the first few minutes after a good solo session with her vibrator. She flushed at the thought.

_Jesus, Niima. It was just a massage. Platonic touch._

Not that she had a lot of experience in that category. It made sense that her only association with physical care was sexual, she rationalized, steadying herself against the wall with one hand as she pulled on her socks. Most people probably had a wider catalog of “good touch” to compare this to. She imagined that a normal person would have had a whole life of it- warm parental embraces, elementary school high fives and innocent holding of hands. Rey pushed the thought away wearily, focused on zipping up her worn levis and lacing her boots up snugly. She wrapped the laces around her ankle an extra time before deftly tying the same double knot she did every day. The routine was comfortable, and settled her back into her skin again.

Outside she accepted a plastic cup of water from Ben’s long fingers and sipped it as he talked. He had pushed up the sleeves of his dark sweater, and Rey saw the edges of tattoos peeking out from under the soft black material.

“Drink plenty of water” he was saying, seemingly oblivious to her studying him. “You’ll probably be a little sore tomorrow- We may have done more work on that hip than we should have on a first session” He frowned a little, and she noticed a faint scar that parted one eyebrow and traced down his cheek. “But I wanted to do as much good as possible, in case you don’t decide to come back… although I do advise regular visits, in your case.”

Rey took another sip. “Regular?”

“I’m pretty familiar with your insurance. I believe you’d be covered for bi-weekly sessions” He was flipping through her clipboard again, not looking at her directly. “Just think about it. If you decide it’s right for you, you can call the front desk to schedule a standing appointment with with me. Or with another therapist, of course.”

His face was smooth and impassive, so she must have imagined that slight stumble.“Finding a good fit is important, and I won’t be offended if you-“

“Nope, I’m good.”

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, so she gave a little shrug and finished her water. “I don’t want to see anyone else.” The slight twist of his lips might have been satisfaction. It passed too quickly to be sure she’d seen it at all. “I’ll uh, work out my schedule with Gwen” she said, pointing her thumb over her shoulder toward the front desk. “Thanks”.

“Well. Good.” He said. She was almost sure it was smugness that lingered about his mouth, but in another moment his expression was so clear and genuine that she was sure she’d been imagining things. “I hope I can do some real good for you. I’ll see you in about two weeks, Miss Niima.”

He put out a hand, and Rey shook it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During quarantine we can have a little Ben POV, as a treat.
> 
> Still an indulgent Fluff fest, soon to be an indulgent smutt-fest. I am new at this, and your kudos mean a lot! Hope you enjoy.

It was Thursday. Rey’s shift was almost over, and she was trying to resist the urge to pull her phone out of her pocket to check the bus schedule again. She had already cleaned up her area, wheeling her welder back to the company storage container and neatly stowing her personaltools and safety gear in the lockbox, but it still wasn’t time to clock out. She pitched in with a garbage run to pass the last ten minutes, even though there was day labor for that. It never hurt to remind anyone paying attention that she was a team player.

_Never get caught sitting,_ She thought, grunting as she heaved a heavy-duty trash bag of rubble over her shoulder and into the dumpster. _Work a little harder than the guys- but not too much harder. Don’t make anyone else look bad._ It was a recipe for life that she followed without thinking about it. There were other ingredients. Lots of them. _Be friendly, but not too friendly. Be tough but not a bitch. Joke, but don’t flirt. Be everyone’s kid sister- Let them show you shit you already know, and they won’t resent you._ Even here, where it felt for the first time like she didn’t have to prove that she deserved to exist, she still followed the recipe.

The site manager, Snap, was having a heated phone conversation when she stopped by the break area to clock out. He rolled his eyes to the heavens and mouthed “payroll”, pointing to the flip phone wedged between his shoulder and chin. She grimaced in sympathy and he gave her a friendly salute on her way out the door.

“Hey Peanut! You ready for happy hour?”

Finn waited up ahead with Poe, who was stubbing out a cigarette. She adjusted her backpack and jogged to catch up. They started walking just as she joined them, clearly assuming she was coming along. She smiled. They way they included her still surprised her every time.

“You owe me a rematch” Poe reminded her immediately, tossing the cigarette butt like a dart into the trash.

“I do not!” Rey snorted, “Yo _u_ owe _me_ a shot. You’re just a sore loser” Poe opened his mouth to argue, but she stopped him. “I can’t today anyway, I’ve got an appointment”. According to the metro app, she could still catch the express. That should give her enough time to clean up a little before her massage.

“Yeah, we’ve all got an appointment- with a cold beer at Chewie’s.” Fin wheedled. “If you don’t come Poe will just beat everyone else and be insufferable all night.”

“Next time.” It came out light and casual, but she still felt a twinge of anxiety. She hated turning them down, even though there was no reason on earth to believe they wouldn’t invite her again tomorrow and next week. Maybe someday she’d learn to take it for granted.

The express got her home at 5:27, which gave her roughly 15 minutes to inhale a granola bar, shower, scrape her hair back into a few tidy buns and head out once more. It was a tight turnaround, but the idea of showing up to her massage smelling like that last garbage run and covered in grime was sufficient motivation. The hustle admittedly made Rey break out in a light sweat pretty much every week (she always seemed to be running late by the last three blocks between the bus stop and her destination) But at least it was _clean_ sweat. She would stop at the front door of the nondescript office suite, scrub her face on her sleeve, and feel her heart rate slow with that first breath of spa-scented air.

….

Ben Solo didn’t have favorite clients. There were a few that he looked forward to working with a lot _less_ than others (4pm on Tuesdays always wore too much perfume, and his 9 am on Fridays answered business calls during their sessions) but he considered himself properly impartial. He had regulars, of course, and he knew exactly as much about them as he needed to do his job well. He saw lawyers and housewives and plumbers, and each of them got his undivided attention and care for 60 to 90 minutes. He _did_ loved a puzzle, however, so unusual clients often occupied his thoughts outside the treatment room. He kept notes about their problems and puzzled over which techniques might help them most, but it was always professional curiosity. If he spent more time thinking about Rey Niima than anyone else- well, she was simply the most unusual.

To start, there was the unlikelihood of her profession. He’d worked on plenty of construction workers, and a few of them had even been women. He’s still had a hard time on that first day reconciling Rey’s slim frame and delicate features with his mental image of a welder. Her fiery expression hen he mentioned it had been a silent reprimand. You never could tell right away what a person was made of, and it was foolish to be surprised.

Any massage therapist worth their salt would be able to make a few educated guesses about their clients after a first session, and Ben was good at his job. It felt almost like a second language, reading bodies by touch. In a weak low back he felt hours in a cubicle. The heat of inflammation in the knees of a young person hinted at early morning runs in bad shoes, and heavy bags and clinging children left unmistakable marks on shoulders and hips. Rey’s body told a story of hardship. Hard-worn muscle knotted under skin marked by both freckles and scars. Tendons strung tight as guitar strings spoke of long labor and not enough rest. The palms of her hands were hard, strong slim fingers seamed with metal grime that never quite washed off. She had also been clearly, painfully uncomfortable being touched.

Ben had hated the feeling of her fear. There were plenty of reasons why people ended up in his line of work, but a desire to make people uncomfortable was not one of them. Feeling like a clumsy beast the whole time, he had practically tiptoed through that first massage. He’d been painfully relieved when she started to relax. It felt like a personal victory. That had been an irrational feeling, and he’d told himself self so, but his pleasure at her progress since then was perfectly professional. Helping with old injuries was tricky work, and he had done a lot of good so far. That was always satisfying. Truth be told, he could never get enough of that feeling- taking away pain, instead of inflicting it.

Rey was in his room now. He glanced at the clock, estimating how much longer she needed. She was always pretty quick, even with those monstrous boots and all their laces.

“Ready?” He tapped lightly on the door.

“mmhm” Her voice was already muffled by the headrest, and he slipped into the dimly lit room. everything was laid out as it should be- his oil blend set ready on the clean countertop, heating pads and hot stones prepped if he needed them, Rey’s belongings stashed in their usual tidy stack in the corner.

“What hurts today, Niima?” It was the same thing he asked her every time, and the repetition made her chuckle.

“I feel pretty good, actually!”

It _might_ be true. He watched his clients like a hawk when they first came in, and she certainly moved more easily than she had those first few weeks, no longer favoring her right side. She also never admitted to any discomfort immediately, so he waited a moment for her to change her mind, adjusting the bolster under her ankles until it was just right.

“Well, lots of overhead work this week, so my neck is a little shot.”

Satisfied, he began his habitual checking of muscles and joints, running his hands over her whole body while it was draped. Her hip joints still moved smoothly under the heel of his palm. No backwards progress there. The shoulders were stiff but that was no surprise. He hadn’t liked how tender her forearms had been last time, and suspected her hands bothered her. She was always flexing them unconsciously.

“We’ll do a little full body work now, and then I’ll have you turn over so we can focus on neck and arms for the rest of the session. Sound ok?”

She hummed her assent.

It was easy to drift off during this kind of work. Once your hands knew their way around a person’s body, it could be tempting to turn on autopilot for a while, following a one-size-fits-all pattern of movements that would sooth and relax but do no real good. Ben generally tried to pay more attention than that though, and with Rey it wasn’t hard. There were still imprints on her shoulders and thighs from the safety harness she had worn all day. He had never seen anyone wearing one before Rey mentioned it, but now he found himself stopping to gaze up at the construction sites on his walk to work, newly curious about the figures scaling beams many stories above. Sometimes he caught a flash of blue light and wondered if it was her up there. He imagined erasing the angry red lines with this hands, coaxing them away until her skin was flushed but unblemished again.

On her left shoulder there was a smudge of black grime. He erased that, too- all it took was a swipe of his well-oiled hand.

“You missed a spot” he teased.

“hmm?”

“Never mind.”

Her damp hair was scraped back into three buns, which would get in the way when she turned over.

“Do you mind if I take these out?” He asked, already reaching for one.

“Oh! Of course let me-“

They both did it in the end, Rey deftly unwrapping the the top two, while he carefully untangled the bun at the base of her neck.

“Sorry it’s all wet” She said sheepishly. Her shampoo smelled like lily and vanilla. Ben lifted the sheet and looked away while she turned over and settled herself.

“sorry to get it all oily” he said a minute later, fingers massaging her scalp.

He concentrated on working out each knot in her neck, cradling her skull in his hands and reaching down as far as his fingers would reach. She let him support the weight of her head, eyes closed and face peaceful. He worked down her shoulders and into each arm. She bared her teeth slightly when her found a too-tight tendon, and he eased up a little. He didn’t always have time to get to it, but today he massaged her wrists and hands, and was rewarded by her eyebrows lifting in pleasure.

Working down each digit, he found a distinct ridge acrossevery finger of her left hand.

“Did you break these?” he ventured, lightening his touch in case it was painful.

“Hmm, yes.” she said lazily. “Doesn’t hurt though. Years and years ago.”

Another puzzle, but this one was none of his business.

“How?”

A tiny frown appeared on Rey’s face. At some point her shoulders had crept up towards her ears.

“Closed them in a tailgate. Stupid, really.” she sighed and relaxed again as he massaged her palm. “Couldn’t work for days. Boss was pissed.”

He digested this information, turning it over and trying to fit it into place. It didn’t sit well with him. In fact, it made him angry.

“Sounds nasty” he said last, laying her had down carefully and moving on to the other. Rey was what? 25? How long ago could that have been, if it happened on the job? He had a sudden vision of a much younger, hungrier woman than the one before him- one who might have worked through broken bones and worse to get to where she was today. The image filled him with rage. It was an old, ugly feeling. It belonged in the past, not here is this room. _Stop telling yourself stories,_ He thought firmly. _Besides, it’s still none of your business._

Rey was squinting up at him with one eye open, and he realized that he must have stopped moving. Her left hand was still cradled in his own.

“Silver lining though” she said, wiggling her fingers at him like she was casting a spell, “now I can tell when it’s going to rain.”

She smiled wryly and closed her eyes again, and Ben felt the anger in his chest melt. The feeling it left behind was much less familiar.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang goes to happy hour. What could go wrong?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all of you for the kudos and comments! It really keeps me going as I fumble my way through this little story. I really value your input and encouragement, and I hope you enjoy the chapter! No Ben this time, for reasons that will become obvious. Also take pity on me, I am my own editor. I'll continue to fix my inevitable typos as I catch them.

“Chewie!” Poe hollered, “Im a broken man. Help me drown my sorrows.”

The old bartender frowned fondly at the three of them, shooing Poe’s elbows of the counter with a wave of his bleach rag.

“If you keep trying to beat that girl at darts, Dameron, your sorrows are gonna put you under the table”

Rey smirked at him while Finn cackled with laughter. Affecting a look of noble suffering, Poe turned back to the bar.

“Happy Meals, Chewie. For me and these ungrateful traitors. Then I demand a rematch”

Chewie obliged, Pouring three pints of cheap lager and three well whiskeys. Rey watched him with affection. The backs of his gnarled hands were tattooed with large paw prints, and with his long grizzled beard and twinkling black eyes, he looked a little like a bear, himself. Poe said he had owned The Falcon Lounge for over thirty years, and never planned on retiring. It was the perfect dive bar- dimly lit and cheaply decorated, with a comfortable smell of fried food and distinctly sticky floors. Rey ended up there with Finn and Poe most Fridays after work.

With a conspiratorial wink, Chewie added a basket of mini corn dogs in front of Rey. “Your winnings.”

“Hey!” Poe wailed, “when have you ever offered food to me when I win the bet? This is gross favoritism!”

“‘Course it is” Chewie growled. “I like her better than you.”

The ensuing battle over her corn dogs soon had all three of them pink in the cheeks and laughing, rematch mercifully forgotten.

They eventually retired to their favorite booth in the corner to nurse their beers and finish the important matter of complaining about work. Finn hated high-rise jobs and couldn’t wait to move on to their next project at the end of the summer. Poe, a crane operator with a passion for his machines that bordered on maniacal, was convinced that his engine was making an “off” noise, and that their supervisor would hear it if he just listened properly. Rey watched them bicker over this last point with a happy glow in her chest that was not entirely due to the whiskey. They were good people. _Her_ people.

“I _do_ believe you!” Finn way saying indignantly, “I just _also_ think that Snap knows what the fuck he is talking about, and that you worry too much. You’re in love with that machine, and it’s unnatural.”

_Boy, I hope they sleep together soon,_ she thought, o _r one of these boys is going to blow a gasket._

They were clearly gone for one another, but hell would probably freeze over before it occurred to them to do something about it. It was hard to say which of them was the more oblivious party. Poe possessed a kind of potent and indiscriminate charm that might reasonably lure anyone with a pulse and an open mind into his bed, but Rey suspected that he might lack the self awareness necessary to see what was right in front of him now. Finn didn’t ooze pansexaul playboy vibes in quite the same way, but he was more sensitive and thoughtful than his best friend. He was all sarcasm and bluster, but there was a vulnerability in his eyes sometimes when he looked at the other man, which made Rey’s heart ache in sympathy. She hoped they would get there in the end without her help. It would be a real relief. She didn’t relish the idea of the sexual tension stretching on forever.

“I’ve got to pee” she announced, slapping her hands down and scooting out of her side of the booth, “You two can let me know who’s right when I come back”

Returning a few minutes later with a pitcher of water in one hand and a stack of glasses in the other, she found they had moved on.

“I’m telling you, acupuncture and massage was the key”, Finn was saying as she poured water into each of the pebbled plastic tumblers. “A few weeks of massage and a little freaky needle stuff from Maz, and my shoulder as good as new. If your knee is acting up you should try her! ”

Poe accepted his water glass, looking extremely skeptical. Finn had been preaching the gospel of self-care to more than just herself, it seemed.

“Rey goes there too- she could barely walk a few weeks ago, and now look at her!” Finn gestured at her, “Tell him Rey! Isn’t Maz the best? That why she’s always busy on Thursdays”

catching up with the thread of the conversation, Rey nodded. “yeah, the place Finn recommended is really great, Poe. I see Ben, not Maz, but it’s been amazing. I didn’t even realize how fucked up my back was before. I think maybe it’s never been NOT fucked up until now.”

Finn frowned at her briefly

“You don’t see Maz? I thought I wrote her name down when I gave you that number…”

Rey shook her head as she scooted back into the bench. 

“Nah, I ended up with Ben Solo, but he’s great too. It’s really better than you think, Poe.”

Finn barely waited for her to finish before he turned back to Poe, obviously deciding that this was enough support to carry his point and not wanting to lose momentum.

“Exactly! The point is, this place is great, it’s covered by our insurance,” he was ticking off points on his fingers, “and only idiots think they’re too macho to take care of themselves. Wake up man! The NFL does yoga now, you don't need to be afraid of a little massage. You should take my advice for once in you life, and just-“

But Poe wasn’t listening. His attention was now fixed on Rey.

“Did you say Solo?”.

Poe’s eyes had sharpened, and he was suddenly leaning in over the table. His intense expression sent a little wave of foreboding through her- it was unfamiliar on his normally open and mischievous face.

“Yeah” She said lightly, rolling her glass between her palms, “Why? Friend of yours?”

Poe’s demeanor did not lighten. “Ben Solo, Tall bastard? Big nose, Mean as a snake?” He pulled out his phone and started tapping and scrolling.

Rey opened her mouth say that _no actually, that didn’t sound like him at all_ , but Poe turned his phone around and shoved a picture under her nose. And there he was- looking several years younger and slightly awkward,with his hands shoved into the pockets of a well cut suit. His hair was shorter, revealing slightly too-large ears, and he looked to have put on about ten pounds of muscle since the photo had been taken. He wasn’t alone in the photo. Poe Dameron, also wearing a expensive-looking suit and tie, had an arm slung around Ben’s shoulder and appeared to be trying to give the taller man a noogie.

“Hold up, who is this guy?” Finn craned to see the phone screen

Poe was still waiting for Rey’s reaction, and she realized she’d been staring open-mouthed at the image for too long.

“Yeah, that’s him.”

“Well. Son of a bitch.” Poe slumped back against the booth as though he’s been punched and didn’t even even trying to stop Finn from tugging the phone out of his hands.

“So he’s a friend?” Rey prompted, as Finn squinted and zoomed in on the photo.

“No.” Poe said firmly. “We are not friends. Not any more. He’s… the boss’ son.”

Rey looked blankly at him, trying to make sense of this.

“Snap has a kid?”

“Not Snap” Poe sighed, now that he’s started he seemed reluctant to elaborate, but Rey and Finn were both looking at him expectantly and he seemed to sense that there was no way out of it. He poked Finn in the chest, right on the company logo emblazoned on his t-shit.

_Organa Construction Ltd_

_“The_ boss. Leia Organa.”

That struck Rey dumb, but only for a moment. Leia Organa was one of the richest and most powerful business moguls on the west coast. Rey supposed that they did technically all work for her, but she’d never met her and didn’t know anyone who had. If Ben was related to the CEO of her company… well, that was a weird coincidence, but it didn’t really justify Poe’s strange behavior.

“Damn, so Rey’s Massage therapist is loaded?” Fin looked vaguely impressed, then seemed to think of something else- “HANG on Poe, you’re in this picture too, looking like some rich a-list asshole! Look at your _shoes!_ How do you know this guy at all?”

“Well he’s my god brother, but that’s not important. What matters is that-”

“OH no, no you don’t” Finn stopped him, with a dawning look of glee. “Did you just try to skate over the fact that you are the _Godson_ of Leia Fucking Organa?!”

He held up the phone again as though the image was damning evidence. “How long have have we known each other, and you’ve never mentioned this! Do you secretly own part of the company or something? Is this some kind of undercover boss scenario? Are you a carpet-walker in disguise?”

Poe was momentarily distracted by these heinous accusations.

“Jesus, Finn” He snatched his phone back and stashed it safely in his pocket “Of _course_ not. Can you imagine me in management? What a fucking nightmare. I just… our families go way back. But that has _nothing_ ” and here he glared at both of them as though they were suggesting otherwise, “to do with _anything._ I just like operating cranes.”

Rey was getting impatient. She could see Finn gathering himself for another round of teasing, and cut him off.

“So what’s the deal with Solo?” she demanded, “you still look like somebody walked over your grave.”

The unease in her stomach had been increasing steadily this whole time. She had a feeling she wasn’t going to like what came next, and wasn’t sure why it mattered to her so much.

“The deal is, he’s a fucking criminal.”

That effectively shut them both up. Finn looked appalled. Rey looked at her water glass, suddenly engrossed in the textured surface. Her mind felt very loud and completely blank at once.

“We were friends once- or at least our folks were friends so we spent so much time together it didn’t matter if we actually got along.”

The truth was rushing out of Poe now like he had sprung a leak.

“But he had issues. He was always an angry kid, although I don’t know what he had to complain about. His life was perfect. He either got away with shit or his family got him out of trouble a lot when we were in school. Everyone hoped he’d grow out of it if they could just keep him out of jail for long enough…but things got worse. A semester before he graduated from Chandrilla university, he dropped out and disappeared- apparently to work for some crime boss. Really fucking scary dude.”

Poe ran his hand through his hair, looking gaunt and sad at the memory.

“There had been red flags everywhere, but somehow none of us saw it coming. His folks did everything they could to reach out to him. We all did. But we haven’t heard shit from him in seven years. Not even when his dad passed. It broke his mother’s heart.”

“Damn” Finn breathed, “That’s fucked up.”

He waited for what he clearly hoped was a respectful amount of time before adding, “So… are you telling us that our massage place is like.. a mob front?”

Poe now had both hands fisted in his hair, and wore a thousand-mile stare.

“I… have no idea. I don’t know anything about his life now. The guy he was wrapped up with- that guy was taken down by the FBI three years ago. I followed the case but Ben was never charged with anything, or even mentioned. We honestly thought he might be dead.”

“Oh GREAT” Finn said “so he got away and now he’s what- a masseuse by day, thug by night?“

Poe groaned. “I don’t _know._ I want to believe better, for his family’s sake. Maybe he got out of the life before the bust? Still wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.”

Poe’s curls were standing on end from all the times he’d run his hands through them, and Finn’s mouth twisted between sympathy and amusement, looking at him.

“Yeah well, if that’s true he’s still an asshole for not reaching out to you guys” He commiserated.

“Jesus, do I tell Leia? I don’t want to get her hopes up again, but I know she’d kill to know that he’s alright… I have to tell her, right?”

Nobody knew what to say to that, so Finn turned on Rey.

“Well one thing’s for sure. _You’re_ not seeing that guy again.”

Rey looked up sharply. The bottom had dropped out of her stomach while she listened to Poe’s story, but her alarm and dismay kept running up against other things- the gentleness in Ben’s voice and hands. His obvious dismay at her discomfort, and the little flickers of humor in their conversation. Finn must not have liked what he saw on her face, because both his eyebrows and his voice rose in response.

“Rey! Are you _seriously-_ No. No _way_. You are are not a stupid person, and that would be the stupidest goddamn thing I have ever heard, so you are not going to say it.”

Rey tried to squash the anger that this sparked. _How dare he tell her what to do?_ She focused instead on the concern behind his words, taking a deep breath before she opened her mouth.

“Look, Ben Solo’s personal history is none of my business, as his client.”

Finn’s eyebrows climbed even higher, threatening to disappear into his hairline, so she rushed on to stop his response.

“I’m not exactly in danger in the middle of a business place, Finn! And if I had never heard any of this, his behavior would never have given me any reason to doubt that. He’s been kind and professional. That’s _my_ experience.” She felt stubbornness stiffening her spine.

Poe’s expression was unreadable.

“But you _did_ hear it.” He said quietly.

“Yeah,” she snapped, “And I also heard you say that you don’t know anything about him anymore. What if he’s trying to live a different life now? Trying to start over? Do I have the right to judge?”

“That’s a pretty romantic assumption to make, Rey. A dangerous assumption.”

Poe’s voice was more measured than Finn’s, but that somehow made her even angrier. She could hear his unspoken plea that she _be reasonable_ , and it made her blood boil.

“People like that don’t change, Rey” Finn sounded a little pleading.

That hurt. She tried not to let it, but the words slipped like a dart through her defenses.

_Bullseye._

It never went away- the past never let go. These friends, who she was just learning to call by that name in her heart, would reject her in an instant if they really knew her. Her past would make her dirty in their eyes.

_Worthless. Uneducated. Unloved. Scavenger._

There was another voice in her head - a newer, more hopeful voice - that told her this wasn’t the same. That she could trust them. That they were trying to keep her safe.

_You’re being reckless_

“I’m going to close out.” she growled.

She got up abruptly, but paused at the edge of their booth. Both men were looking at her with concern and some bewilderment, and she softened a little.

_Just try._

“Look.” She didn’t meet their eyes, “I’ll think about it. I’m not trying to be an idiot. I just… second chances are really important to me.”

She didn’t have it in her to read their reaction on their faces. But after a moment, Finn’s hand appeared and squeezed her own.

“Okay, peanut. Your call.”

Poe sighed, and Rey looked up at him hopefully.

“Yeah, nobody’s saying you can’t take care of yourself, Rey.” He drained the last of his beer and shook his head. “Besides.. This can’t really stay a mystery for long. If Ben Solo’s back from the dead, I’m gonna have to try to contact him. I owe it to Leia to find out what happened.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well folks, there was supposed to be one chapter but it kept getting longer and longer and harder to write, so I broke it into two. So here we are, with one slightly filthy chapter and another with more substance on the way. I.. have no comment. But I love yours! P.S. welcome to the E rating.

There were six days between the happy hour at the Falcon Lounge and Rey’s next appointment. Six days in which she tried not to spend every waking moment fretting about Ben Solo.

She had claimed that his past was none of her business, and she meant it. She really did. The trouble was, her emotions seemed completely oblivious to this firmly held belief. Try as she might to curb her thoughts, they were drawn irresistibly back to him like a magnet. It was infuriating.

Rey would find herself pausing as she sipped her coffee in the morning, suddenly caught in a whirring loop of thoughts.

_What sorts of things had he done? Stealing? Smuggling? Dealing? Had he hurt people? Killed them?_

_If he had killed people, was that forgivable?_

She would shake her head and get on with her solitary breakfast, but less than fifteen minutes later as she brushed her teeth she’d be back at it, frowning into the mirror without seeing her own reflection.

_Was he sorry? Was he dangerous? Was she insane to keep seeing him?_

_Should she be afraid? What was wrong with her, that she didn’t feel afraid?_

She had moderately more success keeping her thoughts in line at work (it was pretty dangerous to get distracted), but even there she had slip-ups. Sometimes in the complete darkness of of her welding hood, She would elongate that instant before creating an arc of light, hands frozen in the act of touching rod to iron.

_He’s Good, I know it. I have felt the good in him._

The thing was, until now Rey had hardly thought about Ben between her appointments. Or, if that wasn’t _quite_ true, she had only thought about him a little bit. A totally normal amount. It wasn’t like there was no temptation- he was, after all, an aggressively attractive man and she had _eyes-_ but he had established himself as one of a select group of men who had never made her feel like a sex object, and it seemed to Rey that the least she could do was return the courtesy.

So she didn’t think about him that way. She never made favorable comparisons between the breadth of his shoulders and those of other men. She didn’t conjure up his strong features in her mind’s eye, trying to get her memory of his face exactly right.

But this week had shaken her resolve. It seemed that any thoughts about Ben Solo opened the door to _all_ thoughts about Ben Solo. Perversely, the amount of time she spent worrying that he might be a violent criminal seemed to have a direct correlation to the amount of time she spent wondering about much less rational things- like whether the rest of his body had the same muscle definition as his forearms, or what his hair felt like. Once in the shower, she even found herself running her hands down her own body luxuriously while idly thinking about how much better larger hands would feel.

_Not acceptable._

By Wednesday she was feeling gloomy and irritable. There had been no further discussion of Ben Solo between her, Poe and Finn, and she was unwilling to break what still felt like a tenuous peace by asking her friend if he had learned anything more. Her silent curiosity seemed to mingle in the air with Poe’s pensive glower at lunchtimes, creating a charged atmosphere like a thunderstorm about to break. Finn was cheerful as usual, but his jokes had a determined edge.

When the three of them had finished their sandwiches and were getting ready to head back to work, Rey’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She fished it out and glanced at it, only to do a double take.

_(unknown): Hello Rey, This is Ben Solo. Forgive the unexpected text, but our building has had a plumbing issue, and we’ve had to close for repairs for the next few days. I usually only offer onsite services to a few housebound clients, but in light of the late notice I’m offering all of my regulars the same option this week. Let me know if you’d like to keep your appointment as a home visit, or try to reschedule for sometime next week. My apologies for the inconvenience. Best, Ben._

Rey stared at the text, reading it several times before she could be sure she’d understood it correctly.

A home session. Was that even a thing that people did? Rey glanced furtively over at her friends before googling it, trying to suppress a blush.

The internet was somewhat reassuring. It was, in fact, a thing.

That left her with the simple but paralyzing question of whether she was comfortable with Ben Solo, possible dangerous criminal and confirmed subject of her current fixations, coming to her apartment where she lived alone.

On the one hand, she literally never had anyone over. Even her few-and-far-between sexual encounters had always happened at the other person’s place. It wasn’t necessarily deliberate, but it had always felt more natural that way. Safer. And in this particular instance, she suddenly had significantly more reason to feel uncertain on that account.

On the other hand… Well, She wanted him to.

_(Rey):Okay, no problem. A home session sounds fine! Do I just text you my address?_

She watched three blue dots blink on her screen for a moment, chewing her lip.

(Unknown): _We’ll do that through the scheduling software. I’ll let Gwen know, and she’ll email you another form for home visits. I believe it’s an agreement about not murdering me._

Rey choked a laugh, her heart beating rather fast as she typed back

(Rey): _lol. Sounds like a plan. See you tomorrow then?_

_(Unknown): I’ll see you then._

_…………………………………._

Rey’s pre-appointment routine should have been less stressful with a whole half of her commute eliminated, but there was an awful lot to do all of the sudden. She had to wash the handful of dishes left in her sink, then sweep the floor and open all the windows, in case there was any stuffy smell that she had gone nose blind to. All of the orphan socks and empty mugs of tea that were hiding in unlikely places had to be hunted down and eliminated. The bathroom, obviously, needed to be spotless. She eyed the clock, calculating how much time she had left for a shower as she pummeled an elderly throw pillow into a more cheerful shape. Fifteen minutes, which she could work with.

After a fierce battle between her street smarts and an extreme unwillingness to justify herself to Finn or Poe, Rey had compromised by texting her neighbor Rose, letting her know she had someone coming over to do maintenance and that she’d text her again by 8. They had set this system up last year after bonding in the laundry room over how creepy the apartment management was. They both lived alone, and though they didn’t know each other well (Rose was a pre-med student who was almost never around) it suited both of them to have somebody in the building who had their back. Rey had been Rose’s “safety buddy” multiple times when She was having her refrigerator repaired, and Rose had been happy to return the favor.

Feeling satisfied that she wasn’t being a _complete_ idiot, Rey hopped in the shower at last. She washed her hair, scrubbed off the day’s grit and probably broke the world record for fastest leg-shave. After toweling off, she left her hair down after quickly untangling it, and considered what to wear. It seemed a little silly to put clothes on when she would be taking them off again in about five minutes, but she pictured answering the door in her bathrobe and winced- _Way too weird. S_ he settled on a black tank top and old grey sweatpants. Her underwear was a little fancier than usual, but that was just because it was laundry day. She had just remembered in the nick of time to put on some deodorant, when the intercom buzzed. She scurried to the front door and pushed the button to connect.

“Yes?”

“Hi, Rey? I’m outside, if you don’t mind buzzing me up.”

the voice on the other end crackled with static, but was recognizably Ben’s. She pushed the second button, hearing the clunk of the front door unlocking as the com shut off.

Rey waited, awkwardly shifting her weight from foot to foot, while the sound of the elevator down the hall hummed into life. A ping, and then footsteps leaving to her door. The firm knock made her jump a little.

She opened the door and there he was, dripping on the doorstep. She stared for a moment. He looked more casual than she was used to seeing him. He wore dark jeans and a plain white Shirt, a faded black denim jacket, and he carried an enormous case under one arm and a bag slung over the other shoulder. His hair was wet. He raised his eyebrows as she stood frozen, her eyes tracking up and down his body.

“Hi. Can I come in?”

“Oh shit, sorry. Yes, come in! Is it raining?”

He stepped cautiously inside and she led him into the main room.

“Can I help with that? Or um, take your coat?”

Ben set down the large canvas case, and peeled off his damp jacket.

“That would be nice, thanks. This is a little soaked- it started coming down right as I got here!”

He handed over the jacket, and she tried not to look at the expanse of arm muscles now on display. She had only ever seen him in long sleeves, and it was now clear that he was both painfully muscular and heavily tattooed. She returned to the entryway to hang up his coat, which was still warm from his body. It smelled like sandalwood.

When she returned, he was looking around with mild interest. There wasn’t much to see. It was an older studio unit, with just enough room for her double bed, a cozy armchair, a bookcase, and her dresser, but she liked the wood floors and natural light. The plaster on the walls had a few cracks, but it was painted a soft cheerful white. There were plants in terra cotta pots on almost every surface available, and a thrifted oriental rug in rose and gold tones that reminded her of a sunset. She was proud of the apartment because it was hers (the first real place she had ever been able to afford on her own) but seeing it through someone else’s eyes made her newly aware of how shabby if probably looked.

Ben didn’t seem to notice anything wrong. He was already unzipping the cover of the case he had brought with him.

“I’ll set up here, if you don’t mind” he gestured to the open center of the room, and began unfolding the contents of the case, which rapidly revealed itself to be a portable massage table. He obviously didn’t need help, so she watched and tried not to hover. 

“That must have been fun to lug around all day” Rey was mesmerized by the efficiency and ease of his motions as he worked. “Do you uh, do this often?”

The massage table complete, Ben fished a folded white sheet out of his bag.

“Normally, just every other week or so. I work with a few clients who have a hard time coming in.”

He shook the sheet out with a snap of his wrist, and it floated down over the table. It was snowy white, and the whole setup looked crisp and alien in her well-worn space.

“This week has been a blast from the past, though. I haven’t done so many house calls since I was fresh out of massage school.” He shot her a wry smile, smoothing a top sheet over the first in perfect folds.“I was relieved when I saw your building has an elevator. My last client lives in a walk-up”

“How long since then?” She inquired, hoping she sounded offhand

“Since school or those stairs?” He quipped, but he still answered the question. “About three years. I’ve been working for Maz for a year and a half now, and hope never to freelance again.”

He straightened, looking around again.

“Well.. this is a little more open concept than our usual space, isn’t it? How about I go… to the kitchen? And you can let me know when you’re ready.”

She had been teetering on the edge of asking him more about his life before now, but her curiosity was effectively quelled by more immediate concerns, like how the kitchen had no door.

“Sure” Rey breathed. “It’s uh. Right there.” she pointed over her shoulder to the open archway to the kitchen. It was decent sized for how small the apartment was, so it should provide decent privacy. He wouldn’t be able to see unless he tried to.

When he had disappeared into the other room (clearly all the way to the opposite end of the kitchen, where there was no line of sight to the living space), she shimmied out of her clothes at top speed. Somehow Ben’s presence in the kitchen made it feel stranger to undress here in her own home than it did to get naked in the impersonal surroundings of the spa. She folded her things neatly and put them on her bed, then slipped up onto the table and under the familiar white sheet. The evening light filtering through her sheer white curtains was dimming, and she could almost pretend she was back in the dimly lit safety of their usual treatment room.

“I’m all set!” she called, before burying her face in the headrest.

Ben’s footsteps were much louder here. Her floor creaked in a few places, and the sound of him approaching raised goosebumps on her body. She almost jumped when he lay a hand on her back.

_Easy, Rey._

If Ben noticed he didn’t say anything, just easing into the massage in the way he always did, with long strokes and exploratory pressure.

“I forgot to ask how you’re feeling” he said after a moment. “Any pain?”

“Nope.” Rey said into the sheet.

“You’re pretty tight” he said, and she snorted- she couldn’t help it. The irony of Ben Solo massaging out the tension caused by freaking out about Ben Solo…

“I’ve been a little stressed this week”

“Hmmm.” He folded back the sheet to her waist, and she breathed in the smell of massage oil as he rubbed his hands together, “We’ll see what we can do about that.”

_Jesus, why did everything he said tonight make her shiver?_

His hands met her skin, and even though it had happened half a hundred times before, Rey felt an electric jolt at his touch. Apparently it was not just his words that were hitting her strangely tonight. Here in her apartment, without the new age music and the presence of half a dozen other people outside the door, with her bed five feet away and his scent mingling with the familiar smell of home… Well. It felt different.

There was the lingering mess of feelings about Poe had told her. She was still torn between anxiety about how little she knew the man who currently had her quite at his mercy, and a burning desire to know him better. She also felt guilty that she knew anything at all about his past that he hadn’t told her himself. But that was silly- it wasn’t like she had gone snooping on purpose.

She tried to relax into his touch like she did every other week. She waited for her brain to slow down, for calm to wash over her like it always did, but the calm didn’t come. He worked her tired muscles as carefully and chastely as usual, but instead of feeling relief, her mind seemed obsessed with tracking the exact location of each individual fingertip. The smooth friction of his skin on hers felt _loud._

It was anxiety, and it wasn’t. She wasn’t exactly tense, it was just that all of her nerve endings seemed to be on fire.

When he moved on from her back to her legs, things intensified. First there was the arranging of the sheet, which involved a clever tuck under the inside of one knee and the outside of the same hip. The air was cool on her skin. Part of one buttock was bare. Her hips and legs were always tight, and Ben dug in like he meant business. She had to bite the inside of her cheek against the combined feeling of tender muscles, this new hypersensitivity, and -there was no denying it now- arousal.

Mercifully, he abandoned her glute to work down to her calf and spend a few minutes there, bending her leg at the knee to give her ankle and shin some attention.

“You painted your toes” He commented.

She had, in an attempt to distract herself the night before. It was something Rey liked doing to remind herself that she could still be feminine and like pretty things. They were now lavender and slightly shimmery.

“they’re cute” He said, then swallowed and cleared his throat.

She felt a warm, fizzy sort of pleasure in her belly. _Was he embarrassed? That was… endearing._

Then his hands slid back up to her thigh, and that thought evaporated. Her attention narrowed to a pinpoint- or rather ten pinpoints. She bit her lips, thankful that her face was hidden. What was wrong with her? The heat of his palms felt unbearable. He was doing absolutely nothing unusual. His hands never strayed a millimeter beyond the invisible lines that had existed on her body since their first session, but it didn’t seem to matter.

He switched from one leg to the other. The sheet was unfolded, smoothed, tucked. Her blood simmered.

A sense of unreality settled over her. Up and down, he kneaded her flesh, the rhythm of his movements hypnotic. Every time his hands slid up her thigh, an electric ripple of sensation chased his touch. His fingers would retreat but the feeling did not. Rey found herself repressing little shudders. It was unbearably hot between her thighs, and it occurred to her to worry that he might sense it. What would happen if his fingers slid just a little too far? She was so wet she was afraid it might start leaking down her thighs. What if he felt the evidence of her excitement? Her heartbeat sped up as she found that she could imagine that quite easily.

Maybe it would be an honest mistake… or maybe she would lose the control she was increasingly having to cling to. Perhaps she would arch her back a little at the precise moment that his fingers were traveling upwards, and he would feel it. It would be heart-stopping: that moment when his hand met the slick heat of her core. Her toes curled in humiliated excitement as she imagined it. Would he freeze in horror? Or would her arousal trigger an equal eagerness in him?

Y _es,_ she thought, _Ben would want her, too. He would moan her name when he felt how wet she was. She was so ready, there would be no resistance at all when his fingers slid into her. This same rhythm, but right where she needed him._

_It wouldn’t take much to have her falling apart around him- a hand on her hip, holding her down- his voice in her ear as he slid those thick fingers in and out of her and told her what a good girl she was. She would be wrecked in no time. But that wouldn’t be enough for him. He would pull her body back into his, bend her over the table-_

“Alright Rey, I’ll let you turn over now”

She went rigid. Her heart was thundering in her ears, and a wave of intense shame washed over her as she felt the sheet lift. She wiggled around onto her back but kept her eyes squeezed shut, taking calming breaths through her nose.

_What the actual fuck, Niima?!_

The sheet settled over her body once more, cool and soothing. Steeling herself, she sneaked a glance at Ben. He met her eyes, and there was not a trace of awareness in his gaze. He looked like he always did- unreadable and calm. Her cheeks were flushed and her mind was still racing, but the sweet smile hiding at the corner of his mouth slowed everything inside of her down. He didn’t know. He was just being Ben- kind and professional and focused on taking her pain away. _She_ might be totally depraved, but he didn’t need to know that. Ever.

She closed her eyes again and kept breathing through her nose. Ben massaged her scalp and untied the knots in her neck. She still luxuriated in his touch, but it calmed her down now. By the time he laid his hands lightly her shoulders to get her attention, she felt less like a nuclear furnace and more like herself again.

“I’m going to step out. You take as much time as you need, and meet me in the kitchen, ok?”

She nodded, and waited until she heard him leave before pulling the sheet up over her head.

_What. A. Nightmare._


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh look... some feels have arrived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Thanks SO much for your continued encouragement! It really helps keep going when I get frustrated with my own writing :-)
> 
> One quick note: This fic obviously deals with some (ahem) "massage fantasy" and I wanted to say a few words about that. I was interested in this trope because it puts our characters in an unusual situation of having physical intimacy without sexual or emotional intimacy, and actually makes the development of the latter two things a challenge. I'm also aware, however, that there is a lot of gross and unfortunate real-life sexualization of massage therapy, and that can put real, awesome, ethical professional MTs at risk. It is my intention to be respectful of that in this fic, and to walk the line between sexiness and reality. BUT, it is a thin line and it might push some people's buttons. Please know that I'm tuned into that, and I hope the way things are handled won't let y'all down. 
> 
> Thank you thank for reading! I hope you enjoy this little chapter.

When She was sure that Ben was gone, Rey allowed herself ten seconds of absolute mortification, then sat up and rolled off the table.

She pulled her clothes back on, and after a moment of hesitation, folded the sheets on the massage table into a hasty stack. She couldn’t quite shake the fear that she had left evidence of her fantasy behind, and didn’t want to risk Ben discovering anything.

Ray couldn’t think of the last time something like _that_ had happened. Did she have sexual fantasies? Of course. But fantasizing about specific people? She never really felt the need. Her imagination tended to supply enticing scenarios populated by the vague idea of a sexual parter- just the blur of a handsome face and a general feeling of being desired. She hadn’t even known she was capable of conjuring up that kind of detail, let alone about a person who was in the room wth her.

The only reasonable response, she decided, was to shut that little fantasy up firmly in a boxmarked “ _oh my god never again_ ”, and move on with her life. She liked Ben. She _respected_ Ben. And there was that tiny detail about how Ben might be an unreformed criminal using massage therapy as a front for his less savory business dealings. None of these things made her feel good about the response she had just had to his touch. She would just never ever think about him that way again. How hard could it be?

He was waiting in the kitchen just as he said, leaning back against the counter with his arms braced behind him, apparently reading the takeout menus on her fridge. He looked comically large in the small space- too big to be allowed. His strong features, long limbs and tattoos looked as alien against the backdrop of tiled counter and dingy vintage cabinets as the massage table had in her living room. He smiled at her as she came in, and stood up straight which only made the big-ness worse.

_Great, he has dimples._ She inwardly groaned. _Is it possible that he started having dimples just now? To punish me?_

“I was going to get you some water, but I don’t know where you keep your cups”

“To the left of the sink.” she watched wordlessly as he retrieved a tumbler, filled it at the tap, and presented it to her.

“Thank you.”

She didn’t know what to say to him now. Sipping from the glass, she watched him watch her, wishing there was some way to read his thoughts.

“I’ll start getting packed up” He said at last, “so I can get out of your hair.”

Rey trailed after him into the living room. As she watched him break down and pack the massage table, she was torn between relief that this strange evening was almost over, and a frustrated desire to keep him around a little longer.

_Would it be inappropriate to offer him a beer? Probably. Lord knows I didn’t need to lower my own inhibitions any. Maybe just something safe…_

She cleared her throat before she could lose her nerve.

“Hey, I’m going to make myself a cup of tea. Would you.. like one? Before you go back out in the rain, I mean?”

He hesitated, and she tried not to hold her breath as he considered his answer.

“Sure” he said slowly, “Why not?”

It actually looked like he was already thinking of a lot of reasons “why not”, so she hurried back into the kitchen before he could change his mind.

“I’ve got about ninety kinds, so you may want to come pick out what you want” she called back over her shoulder.

She clambered up on to the counter so that she could reach the top shelf over the sink, where she kept her haphazard collection of herbal teas. He had followed her more slowly, and now stood with his hands in his pockets, gazing up at her on her perch with a rather bemused expression.

“okay, what are my options?”

“First pick a mug” Rey ordered, pointing to the appropriate cabinet.

“yes ma’am” He hid his smile behind the cupboard door.

“I’ve got chamomile, lemon balm, sleepy time, women’s moon cycle- you won’t want that one, tastes terrible anyway, peppermint, cup of calm, nettle, tension tamer, stress ease with cinnamon, gypsy cold care, throat coat, stomach soother, or raspberry leaf. Oh, and orange spice” She wrinkled her nose.

Ben had selected a mug (pink with “not today, satan” in cursive lettering) and his bemused smile had grown wider as she spoke.

“I um, assume you don’t want caffeine right now. But if you do, proper tea is by the kettle, and I might have some green floating around here somewhere..”

“I’ll have the first one”

“Chamomile?” A slightly boring choice, but she could probably use a little calming down, herself. She pulled two tea bags out of the box, and hopped down from the counter. Ben made a slight movement like his instinct was to catch her, but restrained himself. He seemed content to watch her bustle around the kitchen as she selected another mug for herself, retrieved his, and plopped the teabags into each. She filled the kettle and turned it on, then arranged the two cups on the counter to wait for the water to boil. The normalcy of the routine was soothing, although it gave her a little thrill to see the second mug laid out next to her own.

“I hope I’m not keeping you from anything” she said, suddenly worried that he might feel socially obligated to stay. He might have dinner plans. A date. Or maybe he would be late to his second job as a mobster.

“No, last session of the day.” he said, “This is nice of you, thanks.”

Rey allowed herself to be reassured. She dug around for some honey in the cupboard, in case he wanted any. The electric kettle trilled, and Ben stepped in beside her to pour steaming water into each cup.

They settled across from each other once more. Rey snuck glances at him between blowing on her tea and winding the tag around her mug handle. The tattoos on his arms were constellations, she realized, illustrated like antique star charts with roaring lions and scorpions and ships. There were also scars on those arms- Some small and pearly white with age. One or two jagged and pink as though they had never properly healed. They were random and ugly, marring his smooth white skin and occasionally disrupting the beautiful black lines of the tattoos. It explained his usual preference for long sleeves.

The scar on his face was also more obvious in the bright overhead light of her little kitchen. It was a slim pucker in his eyebrow and down his cheek, but she could see now that it continued down his neck and disappeared under the collar of the T shirt, getting wider and more twisted as it went. Ithad clearly been stitched up carefully, but it looked like he had been caught full in the face by the swing of some cruel blade. This, more than Poe’s warning, made Rey understand what kind of life he must have had. He had violence written all over him.

He had to have noticed what she was staring at, so Rey threw caution to the wind.

“Your tattoos are unusual. Are you big into astronomy?”

“I was afraid you were going to guess astrology.” He chuckled. “Yeah, I guess so. Or I used to be. My dad taught me about it.”

“Is he an astronomer?” She caught herself just in time before using the past tense.

_Was he, when he was alive?_

“He was a sailor, actually. I mean, not professionally. He never stuck to one job for long, but he loved to sail.” Ben’s smile was sad, but he didn’t seem angry that she had asked. “He used to go out on long distance trips for weeks and weeks, and he could navigate just by the stars. I was obsessed with learning the constellations as a kid, so I could go with him.”

“Did you ever?”

“No” he said it harshly, and she was afraid her question had broken whatever spell had gotten him talking. He glanced at her apologetically.

“I lost interest.You know how it is” He continued, his tone lighter. “When you’re a kid you think your folks walk on water, but once you’re a teenager… all you want to do is get as far away from them as possible.”

Rey chewed her lip.

I don’t, actually.” She smiled to take any bitterness out of her tone, but it felt forced on her lips. “I grew up in the system.”

She could have said more- like how much she would have loved a father who wanted to teach her _anything_ at all- but she didn’t want to make him feel bad. Even if she was keenly aware of the fact that she was talking to someone who had not even gone to his own father’s funeral. _But,_ she reminded herself, _what I said is true. I don’t know how it is. I probably couldn’t understand if I tried._

Ben looked stricken.

“Jesus Rey, I’m sorry. What an asshole thing to assume. I Shouldn’t have-“

  
“Hey, it’s ok” she said, and found that she meant it. He was clearly furious with himself, and it was probably the most emotion she had ever seen on his face. “Really, Ben. Don’t worry about it.”

“I should have-“

She waved a hand, sparing him from whatever he had had been about to say.

“How could you possibly have known? I don’t exactly have a sign on my forehead saying ‘caution, parents left me at a rest stop, please avoid discussion of family’” She snorted into her cup. When she looked up at him, his expression was unreadable again, but his voice was soft when he asked,

“How old?”

“Five.”

His knuckles were white around the mug in his hands, but he managed not to look shocked.

“So, thirteen years in foster care…”

“Ten years.” Rey corrected him, raising her chin as if daring him to feel sorry for her. “I ran away when I was 15.”

He swallowed. “That’s… young. How did you make it?” That last part sounded more like he was asking himself than her, but she answered anyway.

“I came back here to try and find them - my folks - but I never did. So I stopped waiting. I worked hard, mostly for bad people. Chop shops and illegal salvage mostly. Eventually I saved enough to put myself through a welding certification program, and things got a lot easier after that. I got lucky, found a couple above-board jobs, and then landed this one. It could have been a lot worse. Things could have turned out very differently.”

He was staring at her like she’d told him that she had once been an astronaut, or a lion tamer- neither horrified nor impressed, just shocked. There was a wild sense of relief that came from saying these things out loud. Rey never told anyone this stuff, and couldn’t explain why she was suddenly spilling her guts to this man, of all people. Maybe it felt safer to confide in him than in her new friends because there was so little to lose, or maybe it was something else. Some idiot part of her believed he would understand, wanted him to know and accept this piece of who she was.

Either way, it made her reckless.

“What about you?” She asked him.

His eyes were in his cup now, and he prodded the teabag with one long finger before responding.

“What about me?”

“How did you get here? What came before?”

She could hardly believe that she was asking him this ( _what kind of_ ** _idiot_** _would ask him this?)_ but whatever had come over her seemed to be affecting him as well. It was personal and invasive, and even if he didn’t have something to hide, he might reasonably have been put off by the question. Except he wasn’t. He dragged his gaze up out of his tea to meet hers, seeming spellbound.

He licked his lips, then said “I worked for bad people. I- was one of them.”

An electric zap of sensation at his words- relief and triumph and sadness all at once. He was going to tell her.

It was her turn to keep her face impassive. She nodded once.

“One of the bad people” she confirmed.

“Yes” He breathed.

“And now?” It took an enormous effort to keep her voice neutral.

Ben laughed, but it was a short, bitter sound.

“Now I guess I’m trying to do the opposite”

“So things could have turned out worse for you, too.”

That seemed to set him off, which was bizarre given how many opportunities he’d had to take offense so far.

“No.” He said, setting down his mug so forcefully that tea sloshed over the rim. “No Rey, it’s not the same.”

She had hardly had the chance to feel crushed by this pronouncement when he continued, his voice rising.

“It’s not the same because you came from nothing- were given _nothing,_ and you overcame all of that. I chose it. I said yes to it.”

He was blazing now. The passive gentleness of his expression had fallen away like a mask and a different person stood in her kitchen. Frustration and regret chased each other across his face. Rey could see in him the angry, violent young man that Poe must have known. The sharp edges of his rage had been worn smooth, but she knew a dangerous man when she saw one. She had known them all her life.

“But you’re choosing differently now” she whispered.

“It’s not that simple”

He slumped back against the counter as all the fire went out of him.

“I hurt people, Rey”

It hung in the air between them, raw and ugly. Rey considered it, considered the scars on his body and the anguish on this face. His lips were pressed together, twisting as though to keep any more words from escaping. They had left behind appropriate conversation for a massage therapist and client several minutes ago. Now there was no way of judging the situation, no rubric for what was too personal or too dangerous.

She stepped forward, trusting in the internal voice that was saying this was not a stranger, this was Ben. She touched the scar on his neck.

“it looks like people hurt you, too.”

He drew a shaky breath, and their eyes met. His hand rose slowly towards hers, whether to remove it from his skin or press it closer, she had no idea. She was afraid to breath. His face had gone still again the moment she touched him, but it didn’t look like a mask. He seemed terrified, enraptured, vulnerable.

There was a loud knock on her door.

Rey and Ben both snatched their hands back like they’d been burned. There was a second, more forceful series of knocks, followed by a voice.

“Rey? Are you home?”

Rose’s voice.

“Oh. Shit.” Rey turned away in confusion, starting to look for her phone.

It was on her bed, on silent. There were eleven text notifications and two missed calls glowing up at her from the lock screen. She didn’t even bother reading any of them before she raced to the door. It was 45 minutes past their check-in time, and Rose obviously thought she had been murdered.

She swung the door open, revealing a short woman with a thunderous expression on her face, poised to knock for a third time. When she saw Rey a relieved sigh left her lips, but she didn’t look any less furious.

“ _Rey._ You scared me, girl! Why haven’t you been picking up your phone?”

Rey grimaced. “Rose, I’m _so_ sorry, I lost track of time. I’m totally fine, I’ve just been-“ Rose’s eyes tracked upward as she heard Ben approach behind her.

“Hi. Is everything ok?” His deep rumble of a voice was calm and mild once more.

Rose shut her mouth, shooting Rey a “ _you will explain this later”_ look before producing a DVD of Kill Bill from the pocket of her hoodie.

“Hi, I’m Rose. Rey is just _super_ late for our movie night so I came to make sure she was still coming.” She help up the case as evidence.

Rey was rather impressed. At a guess, she’d say that Rose also had pepper spray and her phone with 911 pre-dialed hidden in that hoodie. Maybe she needed to make more of an effort to make friends with this neighbor.

“My bad, Rose. Phone was on silent, and I lost track of things”

“I was just leaving” Ben said smoothly, and Rey turned to see that he had his bag and massage table already leaning against the entry wall next to him. Disappointment flared in her chest, but she pushed it down.

“ooookay..” Rose’s eyes traveled between the two of them. She was clearly both curious and suspicious. “I’ll be down the hall. See you in fifteen?”

Rey nodded dumbly.

“Nice to meet you, mr…?”

“Ben Solo” Ben supplied. There was a quirk to his mouth that suggested he knew exactly what this was all about, and approved of it.

Rose retreated, and Rey shut the door again.

“Smart.” Ben said, indicating the direction rose had left in.

“Well.” Rey blushed. “Rose is very paranoid.”

“I should get going.”

“Of course.” Rey avoided his eye, retrieving his jacket from its hook. She had hung it over her high vis work vest, and she took a little longer than necessary brushing off any worksite dust that may have transferred.

“Here you go.” She held it up to him, braving his gaze at last.

He wasn’t looking at her though- his head was tilted a little to the side, narrowed eyes locked on the florescent orange vest over her shoulder.

_Organa Construction_ was emblazoned across the back.

“Ben?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some Ben POV. Boy's a dumpster fire, guys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, y'all! This chapter kicked my ass! I'm still pulling my hair out over it, to be honest, but I decided to just let it be. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Oh! And when I was procrastinating writing, I made some moodboards!

__

_Organa Construction._

That logo had been everywhere for the first 20 years of Ben’s life. When he was a child, he had played with mother’s business cards, scattering them over the carpet and building tiny castles out of them when she left him unattended during her endless meetings. It bad been on the pad of paper by the hall phone in the house he grew up in, on the T-shirt he wore for his first summer job and the pens that collected in the backs of kitchen drawers and the bottoms of his school backpacks.

Later, it had appeared in more painful circumstances: On the lab building donated to the university that saved him from expulsion, on the letters from the family lawyer informing him of his disinheritance, embossed on the letter from his mother, pleading for him to ask for help if he needed it, to come home to them. He had carried it in his coat pocket for years before finding the strength to rip it up and leave the past behind. And now it hung like a bad omen on the wall of Rey’s apartment.

She worked for his mother- at the family company. _His_ company, if he had been a different man. The odds were staggering. Unless…

“Ben?”

He had clearly be silent for too long. Rey’s eyes tracked from the vest on the wall to his face, and he thought there might be a touch of nervousness to her expression. Her brows drew together, and his own mouth tightened. What _were_ the odds that this was a coincidence? Was this another one of his mother’s attempts to track him down, to drag him back into the past he had worked so hard to leave behind? She had been relentless when he had first left school to work for Snoke. Several times, he had sniffed out over-friendly baristas or a too-curious neighbor who had been hired by his mother to follow him. Was she using Rey, now?

But it had been years since his family had tried to contact him- the attempts had ended soon after he had failed to appear at Han’s funeral. Anyone would give up after that. And Rey… his stomach clenched at the thought of dishonesty from her. She was too good for that. Too pure.

“Ben”

She touched his sleeve, just a brush with the tips of her fingers. He met her eyes, and felt the tension bleed out of him. He trusted her. God knew why, when he had so few reasons to trust anyone, but it was too late to take it back. He had already told her more about his past than he had dared share with anyone in his new life. Whatever madness had taken hold of him in her tiny kitchen, he didn’t regret it. Not yet, anyway.

“Sorry. Someone walked over my grave.” He smiled reassuringly. The last rosy light of the setting sun turned her hazel eyes gold, illuminating the freckles on her nose. She was so _lovely_.

He really needed to go.

“I’ll see you in two weeks?” she ventured.

“Yes” He said firmly, “Have a good night, Rey. Thank you for the tea.”

————————————————-

After leaving Rey’s building, Ben lugged his travel kit back to his car and loaded it into the back as purple shadows stretched down the streets, melding and blending into an expectant twilight. The summer air was heavy. It felt like it would storm before morning.

That had been… a strange evening. The further away he got, the more it bothered him. He had definitely crossed a line tonight, and couldn’t believe how natural it had all felt in the moment. His judgement had been way off, and he felt the need to rehash everything that had happened, combing through the details for mistakes. He was uneasy for the whole drive home, and continued to fret as he unlocked his front door, automatically stopping the cat from escaping with one foot while he juggled his keys and bags. He stashed the massage table in the hall closet, took off his shoes, and started a load of laundry on autopilot.

Ben still refused to suspect Rey of being a spy for his mother (that was old paranoia talking) but he was increasingly distressed by the memory of their conversation. Had he really said those things to a client? _How_ had he managed to ignore so many of his practiced boundaries in a single evening? Jesus, he’d told her that he used to be a criminal!

Quite apart from putting himself at unnecessary risk, that was not the kind of thing anyone wanted to hear from their massage therapist. She would probably never feel comfortable around him again, and who could blame her?

_Hi Rey, I know I just told you that I used to break people’s legs for living, but don’t worry about that now. Just take your clothes off and trust me to be totally professional._

BB twined around his legs, chirping inquiringly. He picked up the fat orange tabby and settled him in the crook on one arm, paws in the air and belly exposed.

“I’m an idiot” he told his cat, “and I’m going to lose my job”

BB just purred tolerantly as Ben scratched the cat’s white belly.

“You don’t seem appropriately concerned. If I lose my license, how will I feed you? I’ll have to return to a life of crime”

The cat responded to this dire statement with an enormous yawn, And Ben sighed. 

_Heartless animal._

He tried to settle into his regular routine, opening a can of food for BB and a beer for himself. He fished some leftover Thai food out of the fridge and turned on a podcast while he read his email and scrolled through the local headlines and 911 blotter, checking for any red flags. No Snoke. No Hux. Nothing that stank of T _he Order._ They had all been in jail for almost three years now, but he still found himself looking over his shoulder every day. 

Giving up on the podcast after realizing that he had listened to over 20 minutes without absorbing a single word, Ben left his laptop on the counter and slumped onto the couch with his beer and the takeout container, thinking.

Rey hadn’t _seemed_ horrified, he reassured himself as he polished off the last of his pad se ew. When he’d told her, she had seemed… well, how she always seemed to him: kind, strong, a little sad. Like she might understand. It had been inappropriate that they had talked about those things- hell, it had been inappropriate the moment he had said yes to a cup of tea instead of putting on his coat and leaving- but it had felt right. She might not want to see him again, and that was ok. She also _might_ report him to his boss, which would be… not great. He had been as transparent with Maz about his past as he dared, so she wouldn’t be blindsided by anything that he had told Rey, but he would hate for the her to question his professionalism, if she found out he’d been having heart-to-hearts with attractive clients.

And that was the real problem, wasn’t it?

He had known, in an abstract sense, that Rey was attractive. It was the kind of fact that you accepted and moved on from when it came to massage clients- the least interesting thing about her. His 6pm on Thursdays was pretty, just like his 4pm on Mondays had back hair and his 9am Tuesdays had bunions and was always too tan even in the winter. It was a not-useful fact, usually shuffled down the ladder of his priorities to make room for interesting client information, like whether someone had tight hip flexors or frequent migraines or low pain tolerance.

But something had changed tonight. _Everything_ about Rey seemed important. When she had spoken with that stubborn openness about her shitty childhood, lifting her chin in that way that said “ _just try pitying me, I dare you, asshole”…_ well. He hadn’t felt pity. Rage, maybe. Awe, definitely. He had thought about her broken fingers and the hard-won muscles oh her too-thin body and had marveled that such a fucked-up world could make a person like her. He had allowed himself to really look at her, and he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to forget. She wasn’t just pretty. She was luminous.

Telling her about his father, about his past, had been like drawing poison from a snakebite. She had asked, and he’d been unable to keep his stupid mouth shut. For a few moments he had not been alone, and her touch had felt like absolution. He has sure that if they hadn’t been interrupted, he would have told her absolutely anything she wanted to know- everything he kept locked away. It was like a dam had broken in him, letting loose a river of restless longing, and now it had nowhere to go.

He finished his beer and went to pace in front of the large windows of his apartment. The city skyline glimmered, broken here and there by the slim silhouettes of cranes. There was a dark bank of clouds moving in to cover the first few stars in the sky. He felt jittery. Maybe another beer would help. Or a long shower. He didn’t think he’d be able to sleep at all.

————————————————-

Ben didn’t fully remember deciding to go back. He couldn’t have spent more than a moment thinking it through- any amount of consideration should have told him that it was an insane thing to do. Definitely a mistake. HUGE mistake, actually. All he knew was that he was standing at Rey’s door for the second time that night, heart pounding in his ears as he knocked.

She answered the door immediately even though it was god knows how late, as though she had expected him to return. He raked his eyes over her. She still wore those worn out sweatpants and the painfully thin tank top that he had tried not to stare at earlier. Her cheeks were flushed, hazel eyes glittering.

Wordless, she stepped back to let him inside, and he closed the door behind them.

Ben had no plan. Whatever insanity had driven him out of his bed and back to her door now left him high and dry, unable to explain himself. He opened his mouth to try, but it was useless. Rey gave him one fevered look, and then he was stepping forward, hands finding her skin as he kissed her hungrily.

_Jesus, what am I doing?_

He pulled back for a moment, panic flaring, but Rey was wrapping her arms around his neck and tugging him back towards her, kissing him with a ferocity that matched his own.

_Ok. Don’t think. Thinking is bad._

He lifted her small frame easily, moulding her body against his own and burying his face in the crook of her neck. Dimly, her felt her legs wrap around him, heard her pleased gasp as he bit and then kissed the tender skin under her jaw. He growled in approval as her short nails grazed his skin. He licked at the column of her throat and she arched back to allow him better access. one of her ass cheeks fit perfectly in the palm of his hand while his other slid up to support the small of her back.

He walked blindly further into the apartment, barely able to spare enough attention to stop himself from tripping over an armchair. She was grinding into him as he licked and sucked at every inch of skin that he could reach, and his focus was rapidly narrowing to that hot, soft place between her legs. He was agonizingly hard. She already felt so good, dragging along his length,but there were too many layers of clothing between them. He felt frantic- he needed to feel her. He was going to unwrap her like a present and then bury himself in her over and over again until he had silenced the unwelcome voice his head that was whispering _this is wrong, you should stop._

They made it to the kitchen. He set her down on the old tiled counter and drew back to look at her. Rey’s eyes were glassy and dilated, her neck blotchy and red where his mouth had ravaged it. Not breaking eye contact, he curled his fingers under her waistband. She leaned back on her hands, lifting her hips so he could slide her sweatpants and underwear off.

Her long legs were bare and golden against the dingy off-white cabinets. He had seen the freckles that dusted her thighs before but never... all of her. She was perfect. Strong and soft at once, lean muscles leading to the little triangle of curls that he had never allowed himself to imagine before.

All thought of fucking her temporarily evaporated. What had he been thinking? What he needed was to _taste_ her.

Dropping to his knees on her kitchen floor, Ben looked questioningly up at Rey.

She was already spreading her legs for him.

_Goddess_

He kissed the inside of her knee, the smooth flesh of her thigh. His hands already knew her by heart, but now he wanted to memorize every inch of her skin with his lips. He nibbled and kissed his way up each leg, fascinated by the way her muscles gave tiny jolts and then melted into each new caress. Time wasn’t flowing properly. Each freckle required worship. He felt drugged by the softness of her skin, the sweet musky scent of her as he edged his way toward her core.

_“Ben, please”_

Rey tugged at his hair, urging him to hurry. He couldn’t deny her- would never deny her anything. He dragged a finger through her folds, then brought it to his mouth and tasted her.

Her cunt was heaven. Pink and slick- softer and warmer than anything on earth had a right to be. _Perfect_.

She cried out when his tongue replaced his finger, bucking into him with enthusiasm that made his stomach clench and his balls ache. He lapped at her, tongue soft but insistent. She was making desperate little noises now, rocking into his face with her fingers twined into his hair. He needed to make her cum. He needed to be able to feel it.

Without pausing his relentless attention to her clit, he brought his fingers back to her drenched pussy, gently circling and pressing until her body gave way and his middle finger slid into her. Rey froze, and her hands in his hair balled into fists.

“Too much?” He slid his finger slowly back our of her, but she was shaking her head wordlessly, eyes screwed shut.

“More” she whispered.

God, he was going to die. Could you die from being _too_ turned on? He put his tongue back where it belonged, pushing back into her with his finger and inwardly preening with delight at the noise she made in response. He wanted to hear that again. She was so slick, so welcoming... maybe another finger? He thought she might like another very much.

When the second finger joined his first, time flickered again. Everything was too fast and too slow at once. His thoughts were an incoherent mess- Rey was wrapping her legs around his shoulders so tightly, and he was fucking her hard with his fingers and softly with his tongue and was it possible that he could cum just from this? She was riding his hand and his face and reality bent and broke as she came, clenching around him. Her voice was in his ears and her heat surrounded him and her was.. he was...

He was awake.

Fuck.

_Fuck!_

Ben was awake and lying in his bed, drenched in sweat. He was not at Rey’s apartment. Of course he wasn’t. It was psychotic to be disappointed that we wasn’t. He’d had that second beer and fallen asleep. And then… His mind reeled and his body hummed with unresolved lust. There was no way he had just dreamed that about Rey. No way.

This was a terrible very bad dream within a dream, and he was about to wake up a _second_ time and feel a rush of relief when he realized that he _hadn’t_ just had the most intense and incredible sex dream of his life about a client. He had only.. dreamed that he had. That would made sense.

He pinched himself hard on the arm, but the only result was a painful twitch of his cock against the tented blankets.

“Fuck!”

BB, who had been curled up sleeping in his usual spot by his feet, gave him a reproachful look.

“Oh Fuck off!”

The tabby spared him one more disgusted glance before hopping off the bed and padding out of the room. Probably to go find a new person to live with who wasn’t a sexual basket case. Ben didn’t blame him. People who got off on the idea of ravishing vulnerable female clients didn’t deserve cats.

Ben tugged the covers up to his chin, and resolutely crossed his arms.

His erection gave a hopeful throb

“No! Absolutely not!”

Great, now he was talking to his own dick. _Fucking nightmare_.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi y'all. Sorry for the extended radio silence on this fic! I would excuse myself by saying "life got crazy", but I suspect that life is pretty darn crazy for all of us at the moment. 
> 
> At any rate- I'm back! I'm working on this again, and it feels good, if a little rusty. I'm hoping to be back on a regular update schedule going forward, but since I'm still polishing up the next chunk of story... I thought I'd post a little bite sized chapter. Juuuust to reassure you that I'm not leaving this one to languish forever. I hope you enjoy, and I promise there's more coming ASAP!

Rey did not consider herself to be a romantic.

It was not just that she had never _been_ in love (although that was certainly true) it was that she did not believe on some level that she was made to love. Her capacity to trust had been stretched to the breaking point for so many years, that the idea of sharing herself completely with someone else felt alien and frightening. She had never wanted the kind of love that meant losing yourself in someone else- she barely felt like she had control over who _she_ was.

Rey knew enough of what she was missing to want certain things— family was something she craved deep in her gut, a thing she wanted so helplessly that she had sometimes been tempted to accept an abusive, fearful kind of belonging as a substitute. Now she knew that there was moreout there for her- real friendships that felt more like family than any foster family ever had. It eased the longing a little, made her feel more settled in herself. But she still had never felt a deeper pull towards another person.

She craved sex. Not ravenously, but enough that she had taken ownership of her own urges at a fairly early age, carefully choosing partners who neither wanted to hurt her nor wanted more of her than she was willing to give. She had known enough cruel men in her youth to be cautious, but had been lucky enough to keep her body and her pleasure under her own control. It was still complicated, being a woman in a field dominated by so many men. Her sexuality felt like a secret identity that she wore on special occasions, carefully sequestered and separate from her desire for love and belonging. It all worked for her. It wasn't perfect, but it worked. 

Alarmingly, that equilibrium seemed to have shifted.

On Friday morning she spent a full minute staring at the two empty mugs in her kitchen sink. The previous night had seemed like something she had dreamed up, but here was evidence. He had been in her kitchen drinking tea. There was an unfamiliar ache in her chest. She washed the mugs and set them carefully in the drying rack. Ben’s large hands, wrapped around the porcelain, filled her mind. He had stood just there- he had reached up for her hand, where it covered his scar.

How strange that nothing else outside of her had changed. She was going to get dressed and go to work and nothing would be different. It would be two weeks until she saw him again, and even then... well, everything would be the same, wouldn't it? It would be unreasonable to read anything more into it. She should probably be grateful if it was exactly the same- at least that would mean she hadn't crossed some sort of line.

Rey _did_ feel anxious about whether she had overstepped, uneasy about her desire for a man who probably didn’t feel the same way, but most of all she felt… hopeful. It was as though some part of her was finally awake, and that new part was not afraid that she might lose herself. She was only afraid of losing the little glimpse she'd had of Ben Solo- The man with scars, and dimples, and a well of hurt and regret hidden under his careful mask. That man, if he really existed, had woken this feeling. Quietly, recklessly, she hoped he felt it, too.

The stubborn hope lasted until Sunday.

She rolled out of bed with forty five minutes to spare before she was due to grab coffee with Finn and Poe - plenty of time to get ready. Truthfully, it was a standing brunch date, but Poe preferred to call it “coffee”. He suggested it casually each week in the group text as though he did not religiously order a stack of pancakes and a mimosa at the same greasy spoon every Sunday. Rey didn't mind- it meant she felt invited every time. As she scrubbed down briskly in the shower, she heard to chime of a text notification. Probably one of the boys running late, as usual. She rinsed the conditioner out of her hair and let the hot water stream over her face for another moment, eyes scrunched tight and ears full of the dull roar of running water.

When she stepped out and snagged her towel off the back of the bathroom door, a notification was glowing on the steam-fogged screen of her phone. She dried off a little before picking it up, unlocking it with a swipe of one hand and glancing at the message while combing her hair back with the other.

The message was not from Poe or Finn.

_(Ben): Good Morning Rey. For personal reasons, I’m afraid I will no longer be able to work with you as your massage therapist. Our office will of course be happy to match you with another skilled LMT to take over your standing appointments. I understand if this is distressing, and I apologize for the inconvenience. I want you to know that this has nothing to do with your own behavior or actions, and I wish it was possible for me to continue working with you. I do, however, trust that one of my colleagues will be a highly capable replacement . Please let me know if you require further explanation.”_

Rey almost dropped the phone, hands suddenly unsteady as she wrapped the towel more firmly around her self and slid to the floor to sit. She read the first line three times, hoping that she had somehow gotten it wrong, but the text didn’t change.

He was… firing her? From being his client? 

Heat crept up Rey’s neck as she thought of their last session. A loud, panicky part of her brain was insisting that he somehow knew what she had been dreaming about every night since, and that this was a direct result of her guilty fantasies. But that was absurd. In the light of day, Rey knew that this couldn’t really be because of her attraction to Ben, no matter how much sleep she might be losing over it. He couldn’t read her mind.

That left two options- either something completely unrelated to her had come up, disrupting his whole work routine… or he regretted what they had shared over those mugs of tea on Thursday so much that he felt the need to cut ties with her entirely.

She considered the first option briefly, but dismissed it. Maybe it was egocentric of her, but in her gut she knew that this was her fault. It just _fit_. She had shown him who she really was. She thought he had done the same, but in fact it had probably been a huge invasion of privacy. He didn’t want to _know_ her, he had only been trying to help her. And she had humiliated herself like the affection-starved idiot she was.

“Right” Rey nodded to herself, standing up and wiping her eyes. She put her phone firmly down and splashed water on her face. She needed to get dressed. She needed to put on some mascara, and go to breakfast, and find some way of pretending that Ben Solo did not exist.

———————————————————————————————-

When she arrived at breakfast 20 minutes later, hair scraped ruthlessly back into three buns and eyes still slightly red, Rey found Finn already nursing a cup of coffee. He brightened upon seeing her, and the tight fist around her heart eased a little as she slid into the chair across from him and flipped over her own mug. The smell of bacon and burnt coffee enveloped her like a hug. A motley collection of customers occupied the half-full diner, a group of hungover hipsters in plaid and stocking caps looking like technicolored copies of the dock workers on their coffee break at the next table. Soon the noise level would increase as the more serious brunchers trickled in along with after-church families with their starched and shrieking children. Right then, though, it was perfect. Comforting.

“Hey Peanut. Rough night?”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “Rude. Don’t you know better than to tell a lady when she looks like shit?”

Their waitress a foodservice veteran who must have sensed Rey’s empty cup from across the room, appeared at her shoulder to fill it with coffee. Rey smiled gratefully up at her before diving for the sugar packets, avoiding Finn’s eye.

He raised his palms in surrender. “My bad. Clearly a lady’s nights are her own business. And you never look like shit, Rey. You don’t have it in you.”

The waitress smirked at him. “Your usual, hun?” Finn flashed her a blinding smile.

“Extra bacon for me please,” Rey sighed, shooting Finn a conciliatory smile to let him know he wasn’t in trouble. But Finn’s eyes were now fixed over her shoulder at the entrance.

“Oh shit.” he gasped. “looks like you don’t win the award for roughest night, after all.”

Before she could turn around to get a look, Poe slumped into the chair next to Finn, a palpable raincloud of ill-humor hanging over him. His looked gaunt with lack of sleep, and a spectacular black eye bloomed over one side of his face.

“Poe!” Rey cried, forgetting her own misery as she leaned over the table and seized his chin “Are you okay?!” She examined the ugly bruise, tilting his face back and forth.

“Who did this?” Finn hissed. He didn’t touch Poe but clearly wanted to, hands hovering helplessly at his friend’s shoulder.

Poe gently disengaged Rey’s grip and grimaced at the unimpressed waitress, holding out his cup to be filled.

“Thank you. And pancakes please. Double pancakes.”

When she retreated to the kitchen, he slumped even further into his chair.

“Jesus, Poe” Rey breathed. “Did you get jumped? What happened?”

Poe took a bracing sip of coffee, wincing slightly.

“Well” he said at last, “I talked to Ben Solo.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which all of our favorite star-idiots are idiots, and Rose is very smart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I kept writing! This chapter is still a little rough around the edges, but I had a great time writing it, and I hope it makes you smile. There's a storm on the horizon, folks...

The bottom dropped out of Rey’s stomach for the second time that morning.

“Ben Solo, the mob guy?” Finn scowled. “You haven’t mentioned him for weeks. I thought you’d told Organa that he was back and moved on.”

Poe looked glumly into his coffee.

“Yeah, well. I didn’t.”

Finn raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“ _And?”_

Rey drew her feet up onto her chair, hugging her knees and waiting for Poe to continue. Evidently the universe was not interested in letting her ignore Ben Solo’s existence until she felt better. Her mouth felt glued shut, and the bustle and noise of the diner was no longer comforting.

“Okay” Poe drew a deep breath and straightened up. “So, you know already that I’ve known this guy for my whole life, and we used to be like brothers.” His fingers clenched and unclenched around his mug. “So after Rey told me that he was working at your Massage place, Finn, I went there and tried to contact him.”

Rey Held her breath.

“Well, the front desk wouldn’t give me his contact information, and neither would his boss.’

_No Shit,_ Rey thought, but kept her mouth shut.

“So I had to find a way to get to him outside of work.” Poe had he decency to look a little sheepish. “I.. followed him home a couple times.”

“And that seemed like a good idea to you?” Finn asked flatly.

“Well yeah!” Poe scowled at him. “I had to talk to him where it wouldn’t cause a scene! I had no idea if he had gone legitimate or if the massage thing was a front!”

Finn looked extremely skeptical, but Poe plowed onward.

“ _Anyway,_ I made sure that I had a good idea of when he would be home, and watched to see if there were any other lowlifes hanging around his place that might cause me trouble. It took a while, so it wasn’t until last night that I made contact.”

A little flicker of agonized hope flared in Rey’s chest.

_Last night, right before he texted me? Could this be why…_

“Well he obviously wasn’t very happy to see me.” Poe deadpanned, gesturing towards his face.

“He straight up attacked you?!” Finn demanded.

Poe looked a little uncomfortable.

“Well, not exactly” he demurred. “We talked for a while, and then things took a turn.”

Rey stared Poe down.

“I asked him were in the hell he’d been all these years- why he hadn’t had the decency to contact his family, or show up at his father’s funeral, and whether he was still wrapped up in the life he’d gotten into after school.”

Rey remembered the casual affection that had been apparent in the photo Poe had shown her of the two of them. Clearly, they had once been close- closer than she’d ever been to anyone. She had to try and understand how much Poe was hurting, even if her heart flared at the idea of him accosting Ben with all of that.

“And?” Finn prompted again.

Poe’s lips twisted in a way that reminded Rey strongly of Ben.

“It’s complicated. I don’t really know how to feel about what he said. Apparently…” Poe Sighed, “Apparently he was the one who turned his boss in. He collected evidence for over a year. Got some sort of plea deal, and that’s why his name never showed up in court.”

Neither Rey nor Finn dared interrupt.

“I don’t know if I should believe him, after all the shit I’ve seen him pull… But he did give me the name of some detective I could talk to, if I needed proof.”

He wiped his face tiredly.

“I still don’t understand how he could have just ghosted us all like that. If you’d seen what Leia went through these last few years, especially after Han passed…I don’t really know how to forgive that, if he was free to come home all this time.”

Nobody knew what to say.

Two plates were set down before Rey and Finn, breaking the silence for a moment with their muttered thanks. Finn pushed his scrambled eggs around with a fork.

“So…” he ventured, when it seemed that Poe was not going to continue without prompting, “at what point in this conversation did he beat the shit out of you?”

That brought Poe back to himself. The lost look on his face was replaced by a more familiar scowl at Finn, whose lips twitched hopefully in response.

“He did _NOT_ ” Poe said loudly, “beat the shit out of me!”

Finn snorted.

“So he looks way worse, is that it?”

Poe tried for a look of disdain, but the effect was rather spoiled by the black eye.

“A single punch is not an ass-beating” Poe said with dignity. “And _Ben Solo_ may not be able to control himself, but _I_ did not feel the need to stoop to his level.”

“Poe.” Rey spoke for the first time, the one word both a question and an accusation.

A somewhat guilty look stole over his face, and he became very interested in a chip on the rim of his coffee mug.

“I may have egged him on. Slightly.”

Finn made a incredulous noise. “Poe! Are you seriously telling us right now that not _only_ did you follow a dangerous criminal home to ‘talk’ without anyone knowing where you were or what you were doing,” he paused and clasped his hands as though to contain himself, “ you _picked a fight with him?!”_

_“_ I did’t say I picked a fight! I just- he just…” Poe sputtered “We bring out the worst in each other, okay? He’s always been able to get under my skin, and I guess I get under his, too. He was being such an _asshole_ , telling me that what he did was none of my business, and that it wasn’t my place to decide when he was ready to speak to Leia…”

He deflated a little

“I said some shit I probably shouldn’t have.”

For the second time, their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of food. Poe perked up considerably at the sight of a stack of eight pancakes smothered in syrup, and immediately tucked in with gusto. Finn was clearly still torn between concern and extreme exasperation, but his admonition was half-hearted at best.

“That still sounds pretty reckless, man.”

Poe “hmmfed”, his mouth too full to reply.

“Honestly, we got into way worse when we were kids” he said after he swallowed. Color was returning to his cheeks, and Rey couldn’t help but marvel at his resiliency. He was starting to look positively cheerful. “He always had a shitty temper. I’m actually impressed it took him so long to start swinging.”

Rey’s stomach felt decidedly sour. She pushed her eggs, hashbrowns, and extra bacon away from her and tried to keep her face neutral. She didn’t think any of this was very funny. Poe’s black eye was an ugly reminder that Ben’s dark side was no joke, but as she watched her friend shovel pancakes into his mouth, it was Ben’s face she was seeing.

_“I hurt people, Rey”_

She couldn’t forget the misery of those words.

Another moment from that night was stirring in her memory, demanding her attention: the expression Ben’s face when he had spotted her company vest in the hallway. It had lasted for just a moment, but she had seen the panic in his eyes- the expression of a man _not_ ready to face his ghosts. A protective wave of anger hit her, unsticking her tongue from the roof of her mouth.

“So are you going to tell his Mother about all of this?” she asked bluntly.

Poe stopped chewing.

“No.” He said at last. “At least… not yet.”

“I thought that was the whole point” She said quietly, trying to keep the edge out of her voice.

“Yeah, well.” Poe dragged his last bite of pancake through the remaining syrup on his plate, “He asked me not to.”

“Was that before or after he punched you in the face?” demanded Finn.

Poe grimaced.

“Look, he’s a dick, but I want to believe him. If he’s trying to come back… I don’t want to fuck that up. I guess I can give him a little more time.”

After that, the comforting routine of the meal reasserted itself. Rey ate her cold bacon, and Poe speculated out loud about the likelihood of getting a free slice of sympathy pie out of his shiner. Finn’s righteous indignation over Poe’s injury thawed, and Rey focused on laughing with them like it was any other Sunday morning, pushing her anxiety and mortification down as far as it would go.

There was just one more thing she had to know.

She waited until they had finished and payed for their meals, and were starting to make gestures towards gathering jackets and scarves.

“Hey Poe,” she said, keeping her voice as light and casual as possible even though her heart was beating double time in her throat, “Question for you.”

“Hmm?” Poe was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed and his hands over his over-full stomach.

“About the whole Solo thing. Did you, uh, tell him? That you found out about him from me?”

Poe had gone still, and Rey had the sense that he was considering his answer very carefully.

“Nope.” Poe said after a moment. He stood up and started shrugging on his jacket. “He didn’t ask how I knew”. He gave her an innocuous smile that made her feel paranoid for even asking.

“Are you still seeing him?” he asked casually.

“Nope.” She shrugged. It was an effort to sound careless when her throat was so tight, but Rey thought she pulled it off pretty well.

Poe seemed happy to move on, but Finn had his head cocked to one side and was looking at her shrewdly.

“ _What?”_

He raised his palms innocently. “I didn’t say anything.”

——————————————————————————————————————-

The week passed slowly.

Poe’s dramatic reveal at breakfast had been upsetting, but it had also helped put things into perspective for Rey. She still felt like shit, but it was easier to make sense of it now. For a moment, she had entertained the hope that Ben’s abrupt text had been a direct result of his altercation with Poe. Rey hadn’t _meant_ to out Ben to his old friend, but if Ben had found out and blamed her for it, things would have been simpler. There might have been something to fix. But Poe hadn’t even mentioned her- he had just ripped every skeleton Ben had out of the closet.

_What would I do if Plutt showed up on my doorstep, ready to drag me back down into the mud?_

She knew the answer the moment she entertained the question: She would panic- shut down anything that wasn’t under her control. She had spent too long fighting for what she had to imagine putting it at risk.

Events seemed clear to her now. Ben had shared compromising information with her, and then his past had come knocking. That’s what their brief connection was for him: A loose end that he couldn’t afford. She probably would have done the exact same thing in his position.

On Friday during hermorning break, an unexpected bright spot appeared. Rose texted her, startling her out of the Instagram-scrolling trance she had fallen into while she drank her coffee.

_(Rose apt612) Hey! I’ve got two whole days off and no plans. How about an actual movie night to make up for the fake one you bailed on last week? 2nite?_

_(Rey) Sure, I’m free… You know, I’ve never actually seen Kill Bill_

_(Rose apt612) Must rectify this immediately._

_(Rose apt612) Bring wine._

Rey’s stomach did pleasant summersaults. She had been wishing for an excuse to get to know Rose better, but she didn’t have much experience making friends with other women. This felt like the social anxiety equivalent of winning the lottery, and she wasn’t going to squander it.

“A girl’s night” She said out loud.

“Huh?” Snap grunted over his crossword

“Nothing” Rey smiled at her phone. She’d stop by the corner store on her way home and pick up the wine. _Pink wine,_ she decided. _Why the fuck not?_

_——————————————————————————————————————-_

“Are you going to eat the last slice?” Rey eyed the slightly congealed remnant of pizza hopefully.

Rose was sprawled on the carpet nearby, a stray throw pillow under hear head and her hands splayed over her stomach.

“Help yourself” she groaned, “I’m gonna pop if I have any more”

Rey had been a little nervous about the evening, but within a half hour of arriving at Rose’s apartment, she felt like they’d known each other for years. Rose had greeted her with a easy smile and a demand for her pizza preference, then squealed with delight over the sparkling rose Rey had clutched in one hand. 

“We’ll make french 75s! _Perfect!”_ she had crowed, ushering Rey into the colorful and cozy space. Rose’s apartment was like an extension of Rose herself- cheerful, appealing, and overflowing with interesting details. Rey didn’t have time to be self conscious when there was a funko collection to be browsed, hard-to-find houseplants to be admired (Rey would leave with several cuttings, wrapped in damp paper towels) and piles of interesting books on every available surface. Rose, it turned out, collected pop art and was a voracious reader of romance novels in addition to being in the middle of her residency. if it wasn’t for her new friend’s frank and irreverent attitude about it all, Rey would have felt a little over-awed.

“I thought about studying graphic design, but then my older sister gave our parents a collective heart attack by joining the navy” She explained, rolling her eyes and pouring a generous measure of liqueur into Rey’s glass before topping it with wine and handing it over, “ So I had to take one for the team and become a doctor, like a good first generation daughter.”

“Do you… mind?” Rey ventured cautiously, unfamiliar with the dynamics of family expectations and not sure if it was a sore spot.

“I joke” Rose twinkled at her over the rim of her own glass. “I’ve always loved helping people. I think I’m headed for pediatrics- kids are the best. Lording it over Paige at family holidays will be a major perk- but seriously, I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t love it. The hours are too shitty.” She chortled.

Rose was curious about Rey as well, but her questions never felt invasive. As a result, Rey found herself talking more openly than she usually did. She told her new friend a little about having grown up in the system, and if Rose pitied or judged her for it, she hid it well. She didn’t volunteer any information about how she had gotten by between in between childhood and her welding career, but it still felt surprisingly good to share. They commiserated about working around men with fragile egos- Rey recounted a few horror stories about a chauvinistic instructor in her welding courses, and Rose wrinkled her nose in sympathy.

“Sounds like he’d get along great with a couple of the surgeons I work with”

They eventually curled up on Rose’s couch and watched their movie. By the time it was over, Rey was pleasantly buzzed off of wine cocktails, and comfortable enough with her new friend to eat more than half of the pizza.

While she was digesting the last slice, her phone buzzed. It was sitting on the carpet next to Rose’s foot, so the other girl picked it up and tossed it to her. A text preview lit up the screen- Finn had sent her a selfie of him and Poe at The Falcon, the latter of whom was triumphantly holding a handful of darts in the air like a trophy. Finn was giving the camera a look of deadpan exasperation, and Rey couldn’t help but giggle. 

“I swear I didn’t look on purpose” Rose said, “But those two are _cute!”_

She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively “Is one of them your boyfriend? Are they _both_ your boyfriends? I ask for totally innocent, unselfish reasons.” 

“No way” Rey laughed, “They’re just my buddies from work. No romantic entanglements there.”

Rose looked skeptical

“Seriously, they’re like my brothers!” Rey insisted.

“In that case, you can introduce me to them later” Rose’s eyes sparkled with mischief, “and you can also _finally_ spill the tea on the repair guy.”

Rey looked at her blankly

“Repair guy?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know who I mean! Extremely tall, tattoos, absolute snack? May or may not have been about to murder you in your own home, if I hadn’t intervened?”

Rey blanched.

“Oh him,” She said uncomfortably. “He uh… wasn’t actually a repair guy, if I’m being honest”

Rose rolled her eyes “No shit, Sherlock _.”_ She nudged Rey’s foot with her own gently to take any sting out of her words. “Girl, you know you can still invoke the safety protocol for dates, right? I’m not going to judge you for being smart about a one night stand, or whatever. I just want the deets! Let me live through you vicariously, I’m too sleep deprived for a romance of my own.”

All of the oppressive sadness that had lifted from Rey’s shoulders over the course of the evening was settling back over her at once, and she slumped a little as she tried to think of a simple explanation.

“It definitely wasn’t a one night stand” she sighed. Rose raised her eyebrows and she hurried to clarify. “I mean it wasn’t a _date_ or anything at all! He’s actually my massage therapist. Or he _was_ my massage therapist. He’s not my anything, now.”

She tried not to sound too miserable, but obviously failed.

Rose’s eyebrows had climbed even higher. She scrambled to her feet, holding up one finger. Bemused, Rey waited obediently while Rose disappeared into the kitchen, reappearing moments later with the half-empty wine bottle and two flowery coffee mugs. She poured each of them another drink, and handed Rey her cup.

“Spill.”

Rey bit her lip. It felt good to talk to Rose, but sharing these feelings was so far outside her comfort zone, she didn’t know where to begin.

“I can’t really tell you all of it” she said warned, “because some of this stuff isn’t my business to share…”

Rose shook her head impatiently “Then give me the cliff notes. I’m not going to pry into anything you don’t want to tell me, but you’ve practically got a billboard over your head that says ‘Broken Heart’ right now, and it’s not healthy to keep that shit bottled up.” She grinned crookedly. “Trust me on this, I’m basically a doctor.”

Rey smiled weakly back.

Twenty minutes later, Rey had talked herself out and Rose was pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Okay, so let me see if I have this right” Rose said, “You caught feelings for this guy a while back, but the night I stopped by, the two of you had a ‘Big Moment’ and shared some heavy stuff about trauma, and undisclosed personal history. And ever since then you have been dying to jump his bones.”

“Pretty much, yeah.” Rey winced.

“And am I right in thinking that, had I not interrupted in a _super heroic_ but badly timed move, you two might have taken things to the next level?”

Rey shrugged noncommittally

“Oh please” Rose scoffed, “you could cut the sexual tension with a knife.”

Rey made a mortified noise, but Rose barreled onward.

“And then he dropped you from his practice, and had some sort of altercation with your hunky misguided friend Poe, which apparently had nothing to do with any of this?”

“Family drama” Rey confirmed.

“Sure sure. So your assessment of all of this is that he now wants nothing to do with you, possibly because he knows you have feelings for him and he doesn’t feel the same way, and possibly because he over-shared and is afraid you’ll make some kind of trouble for him.”

“I… guess so. Yeah.”

“First of all” Rose fixed her with a serious look, “I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt in regards to him being bad news. I said I wouldn’t ask for details and I meant it, but some of what you’re leaving out sounds shady as fuck.”

Rey bit her lip.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I get the impression that you know what bad news looks like.”

She huffed a laugh. “Yeah. You’re… not wrong.” Rey admitted, “But that’s not Ben.”

“Okay, Good. I trust your judgement.” Rose perked up again as she went on, “So next question- _exactly_ what did he say about why he couldn’t work with you anymore?”

Rey could have repeated the text message to Rose verbatim, but she still had her pride.

“I don’t know… basically just that something personal had come up, and that it wasn’t my fault.” she muttered, “He said another MT at the office could take over my appointments.”

Rose looked unsatisfied, so she pulled up the text thread and held out her phone to the other woman.

“You can read it, if you want. I don’t mind.”

Rose accepted the phone and read the message eagerly, but in seconds her expression had turned incredulous.

“Rey, this message is from almost two weeks ago now”

“…so?”

“So you _never texted him back?”_

Rey gaped at her, totally taken aback.

“What was I supposed to say?” She sputtered, “He was pretty clear!”

“Well for one thing,” Rose said evenly, as though this was obvious, “He specifically said that you could ask him for an explanation.” She pointed to the line of text in question. “And it seems like an explanation would be helpful in this situation.”

Rey made a stubborn face.

“And Secondly…” Rose looked thoughtfully at the phone again, then up at Rey. “I assume that an LMT in this state is legally unable to pursue a sexual relationship with a client”

“wait… what? What does that…”

“It’s pretty much the same for all kinds of therapists and medical professionals” Rose said gently, “I’d have to look up what the rules are for MTs as opposed to doctors. But just _hypothetically_ , if he _did_ have feelings for you?” Rose clicked her tongue sympathetically. “Well, he would have to keep that to himself, or risk some nasty consequences.”

Rose let that sink in for a minute, handing Rey’s phone back to her.

“And if he maybe wanted to _pursue_ those hypothetical feelings?” Rose raised an eyebrow. _“_ Well then he’d definitely have to drop you as a client. At the very least.”

“That’s not what this is.” Rey said stubbornly. “It’s more complicated than that. The other stuff, it’s… complicated.”

“Uh-huh.”

Rey scowled at her

“Besides!” she continued, “If that’s what he wanted, don’t you think he would have _said_ something?” He voice rose until it cracked on a frustrated note.

Rose was looking at her with a sympathetic smile that made Rey want to throw something, or cry. Or both.

“Rey” She said solemnly, “I have a feeling we are going to be very good friends, so I am going to be straight with you.” She put up a finger. “First, Men are idiots. Most of them cannot communicate to save their lives. Second,” She put up another finger, “Going radio silent sends a pretty strong message that you do not want to hear anything else he might have to say. And pressing the issue would be a dicey thing for him to do, in this situation.”

Rey blinked at her.

“So if you want to know what is going on in that dumb, hunky man’s head” Rose said gently, “You might need to actually text him back.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All aboard the smutt express! Please mind the gap/explicit content warning!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi Guys! It's been longer than I intended, but that's because this chapter is f-ing huge. I almost broke it into pieces but honestly, I refuse. We deserve this. I hope you enjoy your meal: filth with an extra helping of soft angst.
> 
> PS this is just a reminder to take pity on me because I am my own proofreader, and I type like a lemur on too much caffeine. I will inevitably catch a new typo every time I can bear to look back over it all.

Rey awoke on Saturday, mouth dry and head pounding.

She gulped water from the cup on her bedside table and groaned as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed, toes skimming the cool floorboards.

French 75s, it turned out, were pretty lethal.

Wrapped snugly in her bathrobe, Rey shuffled into the kitchen to make tea. Her hangover demanded most of her attention as she dropped a teabag into a mug and flipped the switch on the electric kettle, so she successfully thought about nothing for several minutes. The refrigerator light hurt her eyed when she retrieved the milk, and the screech of the silverware drawer made her wince. Only when she was sitting on the couch sipping gingerly on her too-hot tea did the previous night’s conversations begin to percolate to the surface of her thoughts.

She replayed Rose’s words in her head half a hundred times, trying to see things from the other girl’s perspective. Rey still felt on a gut level that the reason for this mess was her own inadequacy. Either she had been too obviously enamored with Ben for him to be comfortable seeing her, or she was too damaged by her past for him to trust her. Either explanation made sense to Rey, fitting into the pattern of disappointments that had made up her life so far. It was almost comforting, like worrying a loose tooth with your tongue over and over again. It hurt, but it was familiar. Dependable.

And yet…

Some of what Rose had said the night before made sense, too.

Rose’s logic felt dangerously optimistic to Rey. Entertaining the idea that her friend could be right made her feel even queasier than last night’s cocktails. Was it possible that she had misunderstood the situation so completely? Could Ben, in fact, be as affected by her as she was by him?

She cradled the idea deep inside herself, like a spark that might go out. If she thought to hard about it, looked too closely at it… it would surely disappear.

Rey spent the day puttering. She swept the floor and changed her sheets, threw out old mail that had piled up on the end table, and emptied the crumb tray in the toaster. She scrubbed the bathroom to within an inch of its life, and then draw a bath in the middle of the afternoon and sat in it until the water went lukewarm. She re-painted her toenails and drank four cups of chamomile tea in a row. He phone distracted her no matter where she put it, sitting accusingly on the counter like an unopened report card or an overdue bill.

She glared at it.

“Mind your own business” Rey muttered- at herself or the dark screen, she wasn’t sure.

When a text notification finally chimed at quarter past six, Rey nearly leapt out of her skin.

Abandoning a half-eaten grilled cheese, Rey scrambled to retrieve her phone from it from under the throw pillow where she had banished it.

She saw the sender’s name and immediately stamped down on the disappointment that threatened to bubble up.

_There is no reason for Ben to text you._

The text was from Finn, and it was short.

_(Finn) Can you come over? Now?_

Rey started to reply with a request for more information, but deleted the message before she sent it. Mysterious messages were out of character for her friend. Something serious must be happening. She slipped a bra on under her T-shirt, stuffed her feet into a pair of sneakers, and grimaced at her damp hair in the hall mirror. Good enough.

_(Rey) On my way._

_——————————————————————————————————————_

Finn’s place was in her neighborhood. The weather was getting colder, so she half-walked-half-jogged the ten or so blocks to his building, trying not to fret about what she was going to find when she got there.

The apartment complex was old and brick, like her own, but with fewer floors and garish green shutters. The door unlocked with a buzz and a loud clunk moments after she jammed the button next to Finn’s name on the intercom. She raced up the carpeted stairs, more nervous with every step.

Finn was waiting for her in the hallway when she got to the top of the stairs. She gave him a critical once-over. Finding no gaping wounds or signs of immediate distress, Rey huffed in exasperation.

“ _Finn!_ What the hell man? What’s the big emergency?”

Finn had one hand on the doorknob of his place, but didn’t open it.

“Thanks for coming. Look, I might be overreacting, or misinterpreting, but I think- I’m pretty sure there’s something you need to know.” Finn Shifted uncomfortably, still not opening the door. “And if I’m right, you’re also going to be mad. So like… try not to get too mad, ok?”

Rey frowned at him, utterly bewildered and more than a little alarmed.

“Finn, what is this about? You’re freaking me out.”

Finn took a breath.

“Okay, here’s the deal. Last night Poe and I uh, had a little heart-to-heart about what went down last weekend.”

“ A heart-to-heart” She repeated, “About last weekend.”

“Yeah. Well. The point is,” Finn reluctantly opened the door and ushered her into the apartment, “He’s got something to tell you. I finally convinced him you deserve to know.”

Finn’s behavior was so bizarre, Rey simply went along with it. Inside, she took off her coat while her friend hovered anxiously, hanging it up beside the pair of jobsite vests in the hallway. Kicking off her sneakers, she saw two pairs of steel toed boots. Definitely Poe’s work boots. And it was definitely Saturday.

Finn, seeing what she was thinking, looked embarrassed, but also a little pleased with himself.

“look, Rey, this isn’t really the time, but…about uh… Poe and I-“

_Well hot damn._

Instinctively, Rey reached out and squeezed Finn’s hand in her own.

“Hey” She glowed at him, trying to put as much reassurance and affection as possible into her smile. “That’s great.”

“Yeah?” He squeezed her hand back.

She rolled her eyes at him.

_“Finally.’_

Finn laughed- one delighted, enthusiastic guffaw that broke the strange tension between them.

“Please try and remember that sentiment _after_ you’ve talked to Poe” he sighed, and led her into the living room.

Poe was hunched into an armchair, glowering like a storm cloud.

_I’ve never seen him so grouchy, so often,_ Rey reflected. Recent events had really done a number on him. His black eye had faded into a slight greenish shadow over one cheekbone, but he still had the same hangdog expression he’d worn the week before.

When Rey entered the room, he looked pleadingly from her to Finn.

“You really think this is necessary?”

Finn gave him a stern look.

“Tell Rey what you told me” He put a gentle hand on Poe’s shoulder, “You know you’re going to feel better when you do”

Poe grimaced like a child about to eat a plate of broccoli. “Yeah,” he sighed, “ I know.”

Rey decided to sit. Whatever this was about, it was starting to sound bad.

“Well?” she prompted.

Poe sat up straight, and looked her in the eye. His mouth twisted and he paused, like he was trying to keep the words safely behind his lips for just a moment longer.

“I lied. To you, about Solo.” He said at last.

“I mean, I didn’t _technically_ lie, but Finn is right, it was a lie by omission, and I’m sorry” He spoke in a rush, trying to get the admission over with as quickly as possible now that he had started. When Rey just stared at him blankly, he pushed on. “You asked me if I told him that you told me- About him, that is. And I said he didn’t ask who told me which was _true…_ but I knew what you meant. And you _did_ come up.”

“I might be wrong, but I got the feeling” Finn said carefully, drawing Rey’s horrified gaze back to him, “That it might matter to you, to know that.” He pursed his lips ironically. “It sure seemed to matter to Solo.”

“What do you mean?” Rey’s voice came out as a croak. She looked desperately between the two of them, and Finn elbowed Poe to get him talking again.

“I was really angry” Poe sighed, “we were both getting angry. I said a lot of things I shouldn’t have, but one of them… was to stay the fuck away from you.”

“ _And?”_ Finn prompted.

“And that was uh, why he punched me.” Poe finished.

There was a buzzing in Rey’s head. She didn’t consciously decide to get up, but somehow she was walking towards the hallway, jamming her feet back into her sneakers and tugging them up onto her heels.

“Rey! Hold up!” Finn was shouting, and the alarm in his voice made her pause. She turned to look at her friend, but kept putting on her coat.

“Rey, please. I knew you would be mad, but _please,_ let’s talk this out. Poe’s an idiot, but he didn’t mean any harm…”

Rey patted his arm and tried a smile. From Finn’s worried expression, it probably wasn’t very successful.

“It’s okay, Finn, I’m not mad.” Rey assured him. “I mean, I’m not mad at _you._ I’m fucking furious at Poe, but we’ll deal with that later. Right now I’ve got to go.”

“Go where?” Finn wailed, “Rey, slow down, you’re making me afraid that this was a huge mistake!”

Rey paused. “Good question.”

She turned on her heel and strode back into the living room. Poe was still sitting on the sofa, His head held miserably between his hands.

“Hey.” she said. He looked up at her hopefully. “You fucked up.”

“I fucked up.” he confirmed.

“Wanna start fixing it?” She shoved her phone at him. “Address. Now.”

Poe gaped at her. “What?”

“Ben Solo’s address.” She unlocked her phone and put it into his unresisting hands. “ I know you have it.”

Resigned, Poe opened maps and started tapping the information in.

Finn looked on uncertainly.

“Peanut… are you okay?”

Rey took her phone back from Poe, and paused to throw her arms around Finn’s neck in a brief hug on her way out.

“I’m fine, and we’ll talk soon. We should probably talk more. Thanks for this.”

—————————————————————————————————————

Rey spent the uber ride to Ben’s address frantically assembling and disassembling puzzle pieces in her mind.

This new revelation had shattered her mental limbo like breaking the ice on a puddle. Instead of clearing things up, however, it had thrown her into a confused state of chaos in which only one thing was obvious: Rey didn’t understand _anything_ about what was going on. All she knew was that Ben knew the she knew Poe, and that it had made him angry. Which might be good or bad, but it was definitely _important._

_Rose was right. I need more information._

She fidgeted, watching the warm brick buildings of the old town transition into newer structures of steel and glass outside the window. She was so lost in her thoughts that it took her a moment to realize that they had stopped. She scrambled out of the car, thanking the driver absentmindedly, and then stared up at the blank face of the building in front of her. It was handsome in a modern, cold sort of way, with lots of mirrored glass and black firebrick accents. She caught sight of herself in the gleaming surface of the door and her stomach flipped over. Her hair had dried into distinctly untidy half-waves, and there was a hole in the knee of her jeans. It was suddenly dawning on her that a normal person would probably just have texted _._ At the very least, she should have texted _before_ showing up at the door of a man who definitely didn’t expect to see her again and probably didn’t want to.

How was she even going to get in?

Rey contemplated the minimalist intercom system next to the huge double doors. According to the address in her phone, She was looking for unit 608, but when she scrolled hesitantly through the electronic menu, the last name listed for that number was “Ren”.

Luckily, she was saved by the appearance of a UPS driver, leaving the building with a hand truck half-full of packages

“Oops, let me get that for you!” Rey said quickly, holding the door open for him as he wheeled by her.

Her heart beat very fast as he thanked her, heading toward the building next door. Rey slipped inside before she could think better of it, and headed determinedly towards the elevator.

_This is so stupid you are so stupid what are you doing?!_

The sixth floor was quiet, each glossy grey apartment door spaced evenly along the carpeted hall that felt more like an office building than a residential one. Rey wondered if Ben had picked this place because he liked it or because it was so anonymous. 

She found the appropriate door. Flawless and blank, just like all the others. She was perversely tempted to press her ear against it and see if there were any signs of life inside, but the possibility of anyone catching her like that was too embarrassing to contemplate.

_He’s probably not even home,_ she thought to herself. It was possible- he didn’t exactly work a 9-5 job. Most of her appointments and been in the evenings, after all. Emboldened by this idea, Rey knocked. Maybe she could leave a note. Or, even better, she could go home and text him like a not-crazy person and he would never even know she’d been there.

For a brief moment, she though she was in luck. But then there was a footstep on the other side of the door.

“Who is it?” She knew that voice from the tips of her fingers to the soles of her feet.

Rey’s heart leap into her throat. She took a step backward, eyes locked on the small peep hole in the center of the door. Now that there was no turning back, she felt an overwhelming desire to bolt for the elevator doors. Before she could move another inch, there was the sound of a deadbolt being hastily turned and the door burst open.

There he stood, as improbably tall and broad as ever, in a pair of grey sweatpants and bare feet. She stared up at him, a half formed explanation dying on her tongue. She held her breath instead, waiting for him to say something. Had it always been this overwhelming, just to look at him?

Ben, for his part, looked like he’d just been hit with a ton of bricks.

“ _Rey?_ ”

His voice was soft, incredulous. He blinked, took a small step towards her- and then the moment was shattered as a fat tabby cat streaked out past his legs and down the hall.

“Aw Shit! BB!”

Ben barreled past Rey and after the escaped animal, which had already disappeared around the corner. Not knowing what else to do, Rey padded tentatively after the pair of them.

At the end of the hall, she found them— The cat curled up under a console table covered in takeout menus and a framed fire escape plan, and Ben on his hands and knees, trying to coax him out. The cat — _what had Ben called him?_ — spotted Rey and chirruped with interest, poking his round head out far enough that Ben could get a hold on him.

“Bad cat, BB!.” He said sternly, cradling the beast gently as he got to his feet, “No more adventures for you.” He looked up at Rey, his cheeks slightly pink. “You’d better come too, I guess.”

She trailed after him, wishing passionately that she could sink through the floor instead.

Ben’s apartment was large and spare, not in the “bachelor who doesn’t own real furniture” way, but in an intentionally minimalist style that made each item feel carefully selected. The main living space was open to the stainless steel kitchen, and large windows took up most of one wall. The floor was concrete, polished to a cool shine, but all of his belongings looked older and warmer than the building he lived in. She tried not be be too obvious as she snuck glances at his bookshelves, at the plaid blanket that was crumpled up in one corner of the couch like a recently- abandoned nest.

She didn’t take off her shoes or her coat, not wanting to make it any more awkward than necessary if he asked her to leave.

The cat, now loose and purring proudly after its successful jailbreak, butted against her legs, and she rubbed his ears to avoid looking at Ben.

“Is your cat’s name… Baby?” She asked, at the same time that Ben said

“Why are you here?”

They both looked mortified.

Ben seemed to realize that he had been given the more manageable question, and answered first.

“His name is BB-8” He said, watching as the cat in question displayed the white underside of his chin for Rey to scratch. “It’s… actually just his shelter registration number. I kept meaning to give him a real name but we both got used to it. And now he’s just BB.”

Rey looked up at him reluctantly.

“I’m really sorry, I know it’s not my place to be here” she said seriously, “I just wanted to talk to you in person— to apologize, you know, about Poe, and I didn’t exactly think it through. I just,” she gestured helplessly “came.”

“Ah yes. Our mutual friend.” Ben said dryly, “That would explain how you knew where to find me.”

Rey groaned, covering her face with her hands. Why on _earth_ had this ever seemed like a logical thing to do? She slumped down to sit on the back of his sofa, and BB-8 gave her up as uninteresting. “Oh God, I really, really wasn’t thinking.” she moaned through her fingers, “ I swear to God, I’m not stalking you.”

Ben “Hmfed”, but Rey thought she heard a little humor in his tone. She peeked at him. He was sitting on one of the tall-backed stools at the kitchen counter, arms crossed and face unreadable.

“Why do you think you need to apologize?” He asked.

The question confused her so much she dropped her hands to gape at him.

_“What?”_

“Why” he repeated, “Do you think you did anything wrong?”

She blinked at him.

“Well that’s obvious!” she exclaimed, “It’s basically my fault that Poe came busting back into your life, Which I feel terrible about… Even though it was kind of a freak coincidence and I didn’t mean to mess up your life. I— Iwould _never_ have told him any of the things you told me, you know.That’s not why any of this happened.”

She shoved her hands nervously into her jacket pockets

“I wasn’t even sure that you knew that it was all my fault until today, when he told me about that part of what he said to you, and then I _knew_ that you knew, and I just” she took a breath, “ I just couldn’t stand you thinking that I’d ratted you out or something. And I get why you’re upset, and why you don’t want to treat me anymore. And of course now I _also_ need to apologize for just _showing up_ here like an actual crazy person.”

The mask-like neutrality of Ben’s expression had melted a little more with each sentence that came out of Rey’s mouth, and by the time she finished he looked frankly dumbfounded.

“Okay, fuck this.” He said suddenly, standing up and making Rey jump. “Excuse me” he amended, “What I mean is, this is not how I— this started poorly. Let’s start over.”

“W-what?”

_How many times was she going to ask that today?_

Ben approached her with a hand outstretched. She looked at his large palm and swallowed, but gamely put her own hand in his and let him help her up.

“Hi.” he said softly. “I didn’t expect you, but I’m not angry that you’re here. Can I take your coat?”

Rey nodded silently, slipping her hand out of his (was it healthy that every hair on her body stood up when she touched him?) to shrug off her jacket. He disappeared into the hallwayto hang it up, which gave her a moment to freak out in private.

“Are you thirsty?” He asked, returning to the room.

“Nope.” she rasped.

“Alright, let’s sit.”

He gestured towards the soft leather couch that Rey had been perched on the back of moments ago. She followed his lead, sinking onto the cushioned seat but leaving him the end with the blanket. He settled into his spot and smiled at her with one corner of his mouth. At closer range, she saw dark smudges under his eyes, and a muscle in his jaw twitched.

_At least he looks nervous, too,_ she thought.

“I’m pretty confused.” Rey admitted.

That startled a laugh out of Ben, but he sobered again immediately.

“That’s my fault” He said seriously. “I’m… not sure why you aren’t asking _me_ for an apology.”

Rey almost said _“What?”_ again, but closed her mouth just in time.

Ben continued. “I behaved totally unprofessionally, then dropped you as a client with no warning, left it up to you to ask for an explanation like a goddamn coward—“ he let out a frustrated breath through his nose, “And then the next thing you probably heard,” he squinted at the ceiling like there was something interesting up there, “I had assaulted your—friend? Your whatever-Dameron-is-to-you.”

_Well. That was a different interpretation._

“Currently Poe is my coworker” Rey offered. “He owes me about a dozen rounds of beer and a better apology, after which we might be friends again.”

The little spark was back in her chest. She breathed carefully, not wanting it to go out.

“I think I should have asked you why you don’t want to see me anymore, like two weeks ago.” she continued, trying not to imagine Rose’s expression if she could hear this. “If it’s really not because of Poe, and it’s not because I fucked it up, then I honesty have no idea what’s going on.”

There. She couldn’t be any more vulnerable than that. Rey shoved her hands under her thighs so he wouldn’t see them tremble as she waited for Ben’s reply.

A fascinating thing was happening to the man across from her. The flush that had colored his cheeks earlier was creeping back up his neck, spreading over his face until even the what she could glimpse of his ears was pink. Ben Solo was blushing. Blushing _furiously,_ which Rey had though was just an expression until this moment. It was like witnessing some rare natural phenomenon. Calm, commanding Ben Solo was strawberry pink, and each little scar stood out like a fleck of ice on his skin. Rey thought fleetingly of catching snowflakes on her tongue, and about whether one of those white marks would melt, if she touched it. It was probably good that she was already sitting on her hands.

“It wasn’t totally unrelated to Dameron” he said slowly, grimacing like it was painful to talk. “I already had doubts about whether I should be working with you,” (Rey’s stomach plummeted) “But after the way I reacted? I definitely did not have things under control. It wasn’t really a choice, after that. There was no way— no _ethical_ way— that I could be your MT.”

“Because of the past stuff. I get it.” Rey said glumly. “Too risky.”

“What? No. Rey, are you even listening to me?” He looked her in the eyes for the first time. “I can’t see you anymore because I have feelings for you. Really unprofessional feelings. For fuck’s _sake,”_ He ran his fingers distractedly through his hair, “I punched my oldest friend in the face for telling me to stay away from you! And I’ve… well, how could I _possibly_ treat you, after that?”

“Oh.”

Ben was still extremely red, and looked miserable.

He pursed his lips, clearly steeling himself to reassure her that she could leave now, or to apologize for his behavior or something else stoic that she didn’t want to hear, and that was what did it. That sad little twist of his lips had Rey abandoning her seat to clamber awkwardly across the sofa to to him on her knees. She steadied herself with one hand placed flat against his chest, scanning his face quickly for a reaction. Ben blinked back, his wide eyes searching hers. She was close enough to feel heat coming off of him. His chest was firm under her palm, but very still, like he was holding his breath.

_Well_ , thought Rey, _In for a penny…_

She kissed him.

It felt like all of the blood in her body had been replaced with french 75. Her fingers tingled. Her skin felt electric. Ben hadn’t moved a muscle, too surprised to do more than let himself be kissed. She tasted him carefully, running her lips along his full, soft mouth, keeping her kisses teasingly light. She felt giddy, almost drunk on the sensation of him under her hands and lips as he held so carefully still. She could feel his heart hammering through his tshirt. The fire in her chest crackled and sparked and she pulled back a fraction of an inch, her breath coming quick.

When her lips left his it was like a switch flipped, and Ben started to move. One of his hands flew to her waist. The other slid up her neck to cradle her jaw and he chased her kiss, groaning deep in his throat when he found her lips again. Rey enjoyed the little thrill of power she had felt in those first few moments— but this, she decided, was even better. Ben kissed her like she was fresh water and it was a hot day. He kissed like she was delicious; a treat to be licked and nibbled and savored. A slight nudge of his jaw parted her lips, and she made an embarrassing little sound at the first sweep of his tongue. He smiled against her mouth, then broke away long enough to pick her up by the hips and deposit her into his lap. Rey huffed in surprise, and Ben paused for a second, brow furrowed.

“Is this ok?” he murmured. He had removed his hands from her waist but they still hovered a hair’s breadth from her skin, and his voice made her shiver pleasantly.

Experimentally, Rey slid forward until her knees fit snugly around his hips, and their faces were inches apart. Ben’s breath hitched. She placed her hands over his enormous ones, guiding them back to her body.

“This is definitely okay.” She grinned, and nipped lightly at his lip. Ben _growled_ (which, Rey decided, was a very good noise that she would like to hear again), and pulled her body flush against him as he kissed her.

Rey had felt Ben’s hands on her skin so many times, but never like this. His fingers traced the shape of her body easily, moving with familiarity up her spine, but the urgency of his grasp was entirely new. The fabric of her shirt felt wrong, between them. His fingers found their way into her hair and tugged. She gasped, taking fistfuls of his shirt in return as he turned his attention to her newly bared neck. Ben’s lips were fervent, insistent. When he found a spot just below Rey’s ear that made her squirm, he slowed down and his focus seemed to narrow. He licked and sucked at the tender spot, and Rey felt dizzy with the pleasure of it. Her core throbbed, and she ground against him.

She couldn’t get close enough to him, and that, Rey realized was what had really changed: that he was giving her not just the touch of his hands, but the heat and nearness of his body. Never once, in their sessions, had he so much as brushed against her as he worked. Massage seemed intimate, but she saw now the gulf between touching and being touched; the care with which Ben had given comfort without ever surrendering a drop of himself. And now that she felt the difference, she couldn’t get enough of him. She needed skin. It was distinctly unfair that he had seen so much of her, and yet his body was still a mystery.

Rey slipped her hands under the hem of his T-shirt, running them up the excitingly hard contours of his stomach. She tugged at the offending garment, breaking off Ben’s exploration of her neck so she could remove it. He smiled bemusedly, allowing her to struggle for a moment before cooperating. Tossing his shirt aside, she sat back a little to take in the sight of him, sprawled back on the worn brown leather of the sofa beneath her. He was impossibly broad— sculpted and pale, with scars and tattooed stars scattered across his skin like flaws in white marble.

He was holding himself back again. She could see the tension of his muscles as she ran her fingers over his skin. His eyes were hooded and glittering, but he held still for her, letting her explore, only shuddering when she rocked slowly against him. he wanted her- he was rock hard under her and she could see the flicker of his pulse in the hollow of his throat. A little hiss of breath escaped him when she kissed him there. Ben Solo was very good at giving, she realized, and very reluctant to take. It made her chest ache. Rey wanted to tell him that, far from being too much, each little possessive gesture he had made set her blood on fire. She wished she could tell him to take everything he wanted. But she didn’t know how to say something like that.

A mischievous smile came to Rey’s lips. She was thinking of all the times she had rushed to undress and slip under that sheet, while Ben waited chastely outside the door. Slipping off of his lap, she stood up and toed off her sneakers, bending to arrange them neatly. Next went her jeans, which she folded and placed on top. She didn’t dare to look at him until the T-Shirt had joined the stack. She glanced at him shyly then. He was biting his lips, a dimple threatening to make an appearance as he suppressed a smile. His eyes flicked between Rey and the little tower of clothes, dancing with amused recognition. Her hands only shook a little as she unhooked her bra, and let it fall. She slipped out of her underwear, heart thumping.

The sun had set and the windows behind her threw a purple twilight glow over them both.

_What now, Niima?_

Insecurity caught at the edges of her desire. She wanted him desperately. Her body was trembling with it. Moments ago she had been playing a game with him, trying to make him smile. Now it felt like the night in her kitchen all over again, when she had reached out and not been sure that he would let her touch him. Had she gone too far? Not far enough?

_Show me,_ She willed him silently, closing her eyes, _Show me I’m not alone._

She heard him stand, felt his body heat.

His fingers grazed her neck, traced her collarbone. She sighed, leaning into his touch, and he caught her lips in a light kiss. She opened her eyes as he touched her, his fingers shaking a little as he cupped her small breast, sweeping a thumb over one hard nipple. She hummed appreciatively. Rey tried to keep still, like Ben had. He knelt down to replace his hands with his mouth and she bit her lips to stay quiet as he kissed first one breast and then the other. She was so focused on the activity of his tongue that she had little attention to spare for his hands, until his fingers found the hot wetness between her thighs. A choked gasp escaped her then, and Ben looked up at her with avid interest. He slid a finger between her folds, already slick with arousal, and watched her face as he repeated the motion, caressing her. A shudder ran through her.

She had intended to give _him_ pleasure, she thought vaguely. But he kept moving at that teasing pace, and it was making her knees tremble.

“ _Ben_ ” she managed, not knowing if she meant to stop him or plead for more.

He grinned crookedly and the sound of his name, and slid one broad finger into her, just a little way. Rey whimpered.

_I think he liked that,_ she thought dimly, clutching his shoulders for support as he pushed deeper into her, continuing to stoke her clit with the pad of his thumb.

“Ben” She sighed again, and was rewarded with his groan, and the press of a second finger into her core. “oh _fuck!”_

The support of his shoulders was soon not enough. She sank to her knees, Ben following her down until she was once again straddling his lap, this time on the unforgiving concrete of the floor. His fingers still teased at her, and little tremors kept running down her legs. She was near the edge of an orgasm already.

Their eyes were on a level now.

“wait.” It was her turn to blush. “please, I want…”

_I don’t want to be alone. Even for this._

“Anything” he said raggedly

“Be _with_ me” She whispered, resting her forehead on his shoulder to hide her face. It wasn’t the most coherent demand, but he seemed to understand. He slid his fingers gently away from her. She reached between them, pulling at the waistband of his sweatpants. He rose up on his knees so she could drag them down, releasing his erection. She ran her hand over the length of it, large and velvet-smooth, just like the rest of him.

“Should I get” he ground out “something for-?” He broke off in a gasp

“I’m safe” she said, “If you’re clean”.

“Definitely.” He groaned, “Now, _come here_.”

Rey slid her arms around his neck, and he drew her snugly against him. With a satisfied grunt, he stood up, taking her weight easily. He paused to extricate himself from his partially removed pants, and then kissed her deeply.

“Where are we going?” she asked when he dragged himself away for a moment. Her legs were wrapped around his waist. When she shifted her hips, the hardness of his shaft dragged against her slick core in a way that was just… _perfect._

_“_ Not very far, if you keep—“ Ben made that sound she liked again, “Doing _that.”_

They made it to what must be his bedroom. He managed the door awkwardly with one hand, and then Rey shut it with a kick of her foot. Ben made for the bed, but Rey liked being held like this. She ground into him again, making Ben swear. Then he was lifting her a little higher in his arms, turning them until her back met the wall, and all at once the head of him was nudging at her entrance. Slowly, he sank into her, and Rey couldn’t make a sound. She felt impossibly full- totally overwhelmed with sensation. He drew back, and then plunged in again, deeper, and Rey clutched at him, her legs convulsively tightening to draw him closer.

Three thrusts, four, and Rey’s breath was growing ragged. Seven, and her silence was breaking up into little gasps and whimpers of pleasure. Ben’s pace was punishing but steady. She was drunk on the feeling of him pressed against her, inside of her, everywhere. Already she was close to falling apart. She could tell he was losing control as well, his hips snapping into her with increasing fervor. Heat was building within her- a wave that swelled with each slide of his body into hers. She chased the sensation desperately until a gasp from Ben pushed her over the brink. She cried out as she came all at once, her orgasm ripping through her like lighting. She shuddered in his grasp and he stilled, panting. Rey was shaking with adrenaline, but Ben wrapped her up even tighter in his arms, stumbling the few feet to his bed to sit with her curled around him.

“I’ve got you, sweetheart” he murmured into her neck

After a few moments, Rey shifted against him, and he loosened his grip. She could see his face, all cool blues and inky shadows in the light from the window. His lips were swollen with kisses, eyes still glimmering with lust. All for her. He was still inside her, pulsing with need. Tentatively, she rocked her hips into his where they sat, drinking in the sight of him. She did it again, reveling in how it made his eyes roll back and his mouth fall open. She rode him gently until he was moaning and bucking against her, then let him flip them over into the soft sheets. He kissed her feverishly everywhere he could reach, muttering broken bits of nonsense in which she though she made out the words “perfect”, and “never” and “Mine”. He came in a few uneven strokeswith her name on his lips. They lay twined together for a long time.

Eventually Rey levered herself up.

“Bathroom?” She whispered. Ben grunted, still facedown in the blankets, and pointed in the general direction of the hall.

She slipped away to clean up a little and try and gather her thoughts.

When she came back, Ben was curled on his side, clearly waiting for her with one eye on the door. She sat on the bed next to him. She’d retrieved her underwear from the living room, but had hesitated to dress any further.

“It’s getting late” She murmured. His hair was a mess, and she wanted to comb it out with her fingers, but she hesitated. “Should I go?”

“What?” Ben struggled up onto his elbows, frowning sleepily at her. “No.”

“No?” She said hopefully.

Ben looked affronted. He slung an arm around her waist and pulled her to him. She relaxed into him, enveloped again the warm scent of sandalwood and sex. He dragged the comforter up over them.

“Stay” He sighed into her hair. “Please.”


End file.
